Relationship Between Time Consumption and Quality of Responses to Drug-related Queries: A Study From Seven Drug Information Centers in Scandinavia.

PURPOSE: The aims of this study were to assess the quality of responses produced by drug information centers (DICs) in Scandinavia, and to study the association between time consumption processing queries and the quality of the responses. METHODS: We posed six identical drug-related queries to seven DICs in Scandinavia, and the time consumption required for processing them was estimated. Clinical pharmacologists (internal experts) and general practitioners (external experts) reviewed responses individually. We used mixed model linear regression analyses to study the associations between time consumption on one hand and the summarized quality scores and the overall impression of the responses on the other hand. FINDINGS: Both expert groups generally assessed the quality of the responses as "satisfactory" to "good." A few responses were criticized for being poorly synthesized and less relevant, of which none were quality-assured using co-signatures. For external experts, an increase in time consumption was statistically significantly associated with a decrease in common quality score (change in score, -0.20 per hour of work; 95% CI, -0.33 to -0.06; P = 0.004), and overall impression (change in score, -0.05 per hour of work; 95% CI, -0.08 to -0.01; P = 0.005). No such associations were found for the internal experts' assessment. IMPLICATIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first study of the association between time consumption and quality of responses to drug-related queries in DICs. The quality of responses were in general good, but time consumption and quality were only weakly associated in this setting.

Drug Information Services Today: Current Role and Future Perspectives in Rational Drug Therapy.

Polypharmacy and complex drug treatment regimens are becoming increasingly common, which may lead to adverse drug reactions, drug interactions, medication nonadherence, and increasing costs and thus challenge the rational use of drugs. At the same time, the accessibility of drug information increases, and health care professionals may have limited opportunities and capabilities to search and critically evaluate drug information. Clinicians have reported difficulties in searching the best evidence and translating study findings into clinically meaningful information applicable to specific patients. Consequently, it remains a challenge to ensure the rational use of drugs in the years to come. Drug information centers (DICs) have been established to promote the rational use of drugs. One of the most important tasks of DICs is the question and answer services for health care professionals posing drug-related questions. DICs staffed by pharmacists and clinical pharmacologists hold expertise in searching for drug information and critical evaluation of the literature. The uniqueness in this service lies not only in the identification and interpretation of the scientific literature but also in the adaptation of the findings into specific clinical situations and the discussion of possible solutions with the enquirer. Thus, DICs could provide valuable decision support to the clinic. Taking into account the increasing number of possible drug-related questions that will arise today and in the future, the DICs will remain highly relevant in the years to come. However, the DICs must follow the developments in health information technology to disseminate relevant, unbiased drug information to old and new users of the service. Moreover, the DICs are important tools to counterbalance the drug information published by the pharmaceutical industry.