Identification of Serious Drug-Drug Interactions: Internet Tools
The aging of the population and increasing complexity of medication regimens used by patients, coupled with a fragmented health care system involving multiple prescribers, has made the occurrence of serious drug-drug interactions more likely today than ever before.
Drug-drug interactions occur when two or more drugs react with each other. This drug-drug interaction may cause a patient to experience an unwanted, serious side effect.
Forty-four percent of all Americans take at least 1 prescription medication, and 17% take 3 or more medications. Moreover, the proportion of Americans taking 3 or more medications increased 40% between 1988 to 1994 and 1999 to 2000. These findings are from Health, United States 2004, a comprehensive report based on data collected by the CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, and other government and private sources.
If you take several different medicines prescribed by more than one doctor, it is important that each of your doctors is made aware of all the medicines you take. Doing so will help you to avoid potential problems such as drug interactions.
In addition, there are several tools available on the Internet which can help patients guard against serious side effects due to drug-drug interactions:
- http://www.drugdigest.org/DD/Interaction/ChooseDrugs
- http://www.drugs.com/xq/cfm/pageID_1150/qx/index.htm
- http://www.subscriberx.com/iqhealth/searchdrug.html
(Posted by: Tom Lamb)