Chapters 1-3 Flashcards
What is a drug?
Any chemical that can affect living things
What is pharmacology?
The study of drugs and their interactions with living systems
What is clinical pharmacology?
The study of drugs in humans
What is therapeutics?
The use of drugs to diagnose, prevent, or treat disease or to prevent pregnancy
What are the three most important characteristics of a drug?
effectiveness, selectivity, and safety
What is the most important characteristic of a drug?
Effectiveness
How is a safe drug defined?
Defined as one that cannot produce harmful effects- even if administered in very high doses
What is meant by reversible action in drugs?
For most drugs, we want the effects to be reversible. Exp. we want anesthetics to subside within a certain amount of time.
What is meant by drug predictability?
A characteristic of a drug that allows the clinician to know how a patient will respond to a certain drug
What is the therapeutic objective of drug therapy?
To provide maximum benefit with minimal harm
What are some administration factors that determine the intensity of drug reactions?
medication errors and patient adherence
What is pharmacokinetics?
Process that determines how much of an administered dose gets to its site of action
What are the four major pharmacokinetic processes?
drug absorption, drug distribution, drug metabolism, and drug excretion
When does pharmacodynamics occur?
Once a drug has reached its site of action
What process can be thought of as the impact of the body on the drug?
Pharmacokinetics
What process can be thought of as the impact of drugs on the body?
Pharmacodynamics
What are the rights of drug administration?
right drug, right route, right time, right dose, right patient, right to refuse, right to education, right assessment, right evaluation
What are the two major areas that nurses can apply pharmacologic knowledge?
Patient care and patient education
What are the 8 aspects of drug therapy for nurses?
1) pre-administration assessment
2) dosage and administration
3) promoting therapeutic effects
4) minimizing adverse effects
5) minimizing adverse interactions
6) making “as needed” (PRN) decisions
7) evaluation responses to medication
8) managing toxicity
What are the three basic goals of pre-administration assessment?
1) collecting baseline data needed to evaluate therapeutic and adverse responses
2) identifying high risk patients
3) assessing the patient’s capacity for self-care
What are the five basic steps of the nursing process?
assessment, analysis (diagnosis), planning, implementation, evaluation
What 3 statements must a nursing diagnosis contain?
1) A statement of the patient’s actual or potential health problem
2) A statement of the problems probable cause or risk factors
3) The signs, symptoms, or other evidence of the problem
What is the goal of the pre-administration assessment?
Establishes the baseline data needed to tailor drug therapy to an individual
What is the analysis and diagnosis phase of treatment directed at?
1) judging the appropriateness of the prescribed therapy
2) identifying potential health problems treatment might cause
3) characterizing the patient’s capacity for self care
What is the planning and implementation phase of the nursing process in drug therapy?
1) defining goals
2) setting priorities
3) identifying interventions
4) establishing criteria for evaluation
What is the evaluation phase of the nursing process for drug therapy?
1) evaluate therapeutic responses and adverse reactions
2) evaluate adherence to prescribed medication
3) evaluate satisfaction with treatment
What was a major provision of the Harris-Keyauver amendments?
provision that required drugs to be proven effective before marketing
How many drug schedules are there and what are they?
1) schedule l- no accepted medical use and deemed high potential for abuse (Methamphetamine)
2) schedule 2-5 –> accepted medical use but has potential for abuse
What is the most reliable way of objectively assessing drug therapies?
Randomized Controlled Trials (RTC)
What are the three features of a randomized controlled trial?
use of controls, randomization, and blinding
What are the controls and why are they useful?
When a drug is being tested, old standard drugs or placebo’s are used as controls. These controls allow us to see if the new medication is more effective than the old standard medication
What is randomization?
Subjects are assigned to either the test group or the control group
What is blinding?
A study in which people do not know what group they belong to (experimental or placebo)
What is the difference between a single blind and a double blind?
Single blinding means that only the test subjects are unaware of which group they belong to and a double blind is when the researches are unaware of which subjects are taking the different medications
What are the two principal steps in drug development?
preclinical testing and clinical testing
What is the purpose of preclinical testing?
Drugs are evaluated for toxicities, pharmacokinetic properties, and potentially useful biological effects
What are the characteristics of clinical testing?
Can take 2-10 years to complete, has four phases, phases 1-3 are completed before marketing, the fourth is completed after FDA approval for marketing
What kind of humans are involved in phase 1 testing?
Healthy individuals
What is the goal of phase 1 testing?
Evaluate drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, and biological effects
Which humans are being tested in phase 2-3?
Patients
What is the goal of phase 2-3 testing?
determine therapeutic effects, dosage range, safety and effectiveness
What humans are used in phase 4 testing?
Opened to the public