[Quality assurance in drug treatment by prescription drug analysis in a psychiatric treatment facility]. / Démarche qualité dans le circuit médicament grâce à l'analyse pharmaceutique des ordonnances dans un établissement de soins psychiatriques.

ABSTRACT

This article reports pharmaceutical analysis of the medical prescription in a psychiatric hospital. This study estimates the impact of the pharmaceutical interventions on the security of the treatment prescribed. This pharmaceutical system is based on individual prescription and on pharmaceutical analysis of this document. This analysis consists in checking high dosage prescription, detecting drug interaction, omission or frank prescribing errors and providing pharmaceutical advice to the physicians. In 1997, hospital pharmacists have intervened in 510 prescriptions--315 high prescribing dosages were checked. In 7.3 percent of these cases, an error of dosage was detected;--66 drug interactions were communicated. Thirteen interventions corresponded to a forbidden association according to the Vidal therapeutic register;--53 pharmaceutical advices were performed; 12 interventions were related to a physiological or a pathological characteristic of the patient which forbid the use of the treatment;--more over, 34 omissions or frank errors were detected through the medium of our interventions; 25 errors could be considered as clinically relevant. In conclusion, the interventions rate was estimated to 3.6% of the new prescriptions. In 14.1% of these cases, they appeared as clinically significant. These rates are lower than those described in the traditional global distribution for which pharmaceutical analysis is not performed. This report has underlined the interest of pharmaceutical care by analysing the medical prescriptions.