Doctors in the dark about how medicines work

Do Doctors have to prove they know how drugs work and can recognise Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs)  before - or even after they qualify?

The newly established Prescribing Safetly Assessment has been available for medical students across the UK only for the past 3 years.
https://www.medschools.ac.uk/our-work/assessment/prescribing-safety-assessment

This is a step forward and follows the campaign 19 years ago, we participated in to persuade the General Medical Council (GMC) to re- introduce Clinical Pharmacology into the medical schools curriculum for medical education, as in the GMC guidline manual called ' Tomorrow's Doctors'.

The subject of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics had been withdrawn as an essential subject for medical students in the early 90's due to the GMC preferring 'Integrated Medicine'. As one Medical Consultant friend said to me " They will learn as the coffins are driven past the surgery windows!".

Non-psychiatric drugs linked to suicidal behaviour and depression in new study

Adverse side effects of medicines can be underestimated and often not recognised as such. 110 drugs prescribed on the NHS have been linked to depression, self-harm and suicidal behaviour in a scientific study of patient Yellow Cards drug reaction reports sent to the Medicine’s Regulatory agency, the MHRA.

The paper published this September 2014 in the journal BMC Pharmacology & Toxicology is believed to be the first UK systematic review of psychiatric side-effects. Researchers found reports of 11,000 cases of depression, self injurious and suicidal behaviour following prescribed drug use between 1964 and 2011. This number covered 1.65% of all reports received in this time period.

Anti-depressants, acne, smoking cessation and weight-loss drugs were most frequently linked with serious psychiatric adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Clozapine, the anti-psychotic drug, had the highest reporting rate of suicide, with 78 reports between 1998 and 2011 linking the fatality to the drug.

Both nervous system and non-nervous system drugs met the study’s thresholds of at least 20 reports for depression, 10 for non-fatal suicide and 5 for fatal suicide between 1998 and 2011. Topping the charts with most frequent reports of depression were smoking cessation medicine, varenicline (Champix / Chantix) and bupriopion (Wellbutrin / Zyban), followed by paroxetine (Seroxat or Paxil), the SSRI antidepressant. Also high on the list of drugs linked to depression were the acne treatment, isotretinoin (Roaccutane / Accutane), and rimonabant (Acomplia), a drug for weight loss. For suicidal and self injurious behaviour, SSRIs, varenicline and clozapine occurred most often.

Figures found in the study are likely to underrepresent the true count of iatrogenic effects (drug-induced side effects) as the Yellow Card reporting system remains relatively underused by both patients and healthcare professionals.

The paper recommends the drugs most commonly arising in patient reports for grave psychiatric conditions need further analysis to understand the reasons why these drugs might be causing undue harm.

When a drug is licensed for prescription, pre-market trials do not undergo full powered studies into adverse drug reactions (ADRs) as this would require larger numbers of participants. Post-marketing pharmacovigilance using the Yellow Card reporting system and its careful analysis is therefore one of the main ways we can achieve a fuller picture into the neglected area of patient experience with medication.

Due to poor publicity and the underpowered studies of iatrogenic effects, psychiatric drug reactions and withdrawal effects are neither sufficiently well recognised nor analysed in the medical community. A study published in 2004 found that fewer than half of pharmacy programmes and medical schools provided students with a guide to reporting ADRs. Yet NHS Education for Scotland (NES), in a press release published in June 2014, stated that 7% of acute hospital admissions were due to ADRs. The NES have thus launched six new e-learning modules to support healthcare professionals identifying and reporting iatrogenic symptoms. Clinical pharmacologist Dr Simon Maxwell published an article reporting that undergraduate study is in urgent need of review to improve the safe and effective use of drugs in patients. 74% of medical students felt the amount of teaching in this area of safe prescribing  was ‘too little’ or ‘far too little’, and most disagreed that their assessment ‘thoroughly tested knowledge and skills’.

If we are to reduce the effect of ADRs on the population, and their economic impact that costs the NHS an estimated £2 billion each year, healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical companies need to make best use of new information made available by patient reporting.

Jacqueline Bond blogging for APRIL

Adverse drug reactions: is the patient voice loud enough? London conference June 24

WHO’S LISTENING TO PATIENTS?

One of the biggest under-reported health problems is adverse drug reactions
(ADRs), the harmful effects of the medicines our doctors prescribe for us.
These can range from unpleasant rashes all the way to suicide.

In 2008, the European Commission estimated that ADRS kill 197,000 citizens
of EU member states, at a cost of€79 billion. That same year, the
centre-left think-tank Compass reckoned that the NHS alone was spending
nearly £2 billion a year treating ADRs.

And for every patient affected, there is a family in crisis, thousands of
working days lost, collapsed businesses and relationship break-ups.

Drug safety is taken very seriously by drug regulators, but there is a
crucial gap in the chain. Does anyone really listen to the one person who is
really expert: the patient who is taking the drug? What happens when
patients do get a chance to report their own symptoms directly? And do we
really know how important the patient voice could be in improving drug
safety?

Come to a special one-day conference on Friday 24 June which will address
these issues – and brainstorm suggestions about how to make the future
safer.

ADRS: Is the patient voice loud enough?
The first International Conference on patient reporting of suspected Adverse
Drug Reactions

Friends House, Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ

PAY ONLY £20 AT THE DOOR ON THE DAY!


Among the speakers will be:
* real patients, telling their own stories
* top UK academics, talking about the first study of direct patient
reporting (http://www.hta.ac.uk/fullmono/mon1520.pdf
)
* government regulators explaining their problems and concerns
* open panel discussion: what can health professionals learn from
patients?

REGISTER/COFFEE 9.30
For full programme see: www.primm.eu.com

Organised by PRIMM/Drug Safety Research Unit

SENT OUT BY MILLIE KIEVE – organizer of the patient experience section of
the conference. If you would like to speak about your own experience, please
contact me asap