An overview to Drug and Poison Information Center services within a referral center in North of Iran, 2018-2019

Drug and Poison Information Centers (DPICs) are healthcare associated units established with professionally trained team engaged in providing accurate and factual information about drugs and poisons. The purpose of this study is to report the services provided by a university hospital DPIC within a year. This study was conducted in Imam Khomeini Hospital in the north of Iran, during 20th of March 2018 to 20th of March 2019. Gender, age, and type of inquiries (e.g. drug identification, therapeutic use of drugs, adverse drug reactions, drug interactions, poisoning-related callers, etc) was recorded. The collected data was analysed using Microsoft Excel 2007. There was 143 calls during the study period . The highest number of questions were received in the fall of 2018 and the lowest were in the winter of 2019. Nurses asked more questions (44.8%) compared to other health-care team of Imam Khomeini hospital were on . The Majority of the people who asked questions were female (87, 60.84%). The most frequent questions were made by the individuals between 30-40 (66, 46,15%). Drug indication (26,95%), storage inquiries (12.1%) and adverse drug reactions (ADR) (10,64%) were the most frequent area asked by callers. The most widely used drug information resource to answer questions was UptoDate2018-2019 . (48.95%). Conclusion: Our study confirms that the healthcare team of hospital have many unmet drug information needs and DPIC services may improve the knowledge of different professions regarding the administration and rational use of drugs

کلیدواژه ها:

Drug Information Services ، Epidemiology ، Pharmacovigilance