Letters
Inappropriate prescribing is "treatable"
EDITOR,--I read R E Ferner's editorial on drug errors with mixed feelings.1 Over a decade ago Gosney and I drew attention to inappropriate prescribing (the prescribing of contraindicated drugs and drugs with adverse interactions) for elderly patients admitted to hospital.2 We subsequently extended our surveys to patients seen in accident and emergency departments,3 patients in long term care wards, and patients in residential homes. We suggested that the conventional explanation for the high incidence of adverse drug reactions in elderly people (changes in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics related to age, multiple disease, and poor compliance) might distract from prescribing errors as a cause. Our most recent study showed that just under half of adverse drug reactions and hospital admissions related to drug treatment in elderly people were due to inappropriate prescribing.4
I have always seen this as good, rather than bad, news. Inappropriate prescribing seems more likely to be "treatable" than
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Article
- Is there a cure for drug errors?
- R E Ferner
BMJ 1995 311: 463-464.[Extract] [Full Text]
This Article
- Full text
- Respond to this article
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when responses are posted
- Alert me when a correction is posted
Services
- Email this article to a friend
- Find similar articles in BMJ
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Related Content
- Unwanted effects / adverse reactions
- Relevant Article
- Find this article in its weekly table of contents
Bookmark with
What's new
Latest blogs
Services
Tools
Online poll
Resources
Rapid responses for this article
There are no rapid responses for this article.Most read
Print issues
