Drug Information

Question 1

Three Types of Resources:

Answer 1

• Primary: Reports of original research (journal article, lab book, interview)
• Secondary: Pointers to primary and tertiary literature (bibliography, PubMed)
• Tertiary: Overviews or summaries of topics (encyclopedia, textbook, newspaper articles, package inserts)

Question 2

Tertiary Resources:

Answer 2

• Good starting points
  
  • Summarized information
  • Organized, compact
  • Usually more easily accessible
• Challenges
  
  • Author bias
  • Limited Information
  • Dated

Question 3

Choosing a Source

Answer 3

• Pharmacist Toolkit
• Resources table from “Finding Drug Information LibGuide”
• Table 3-2 in Chapter 3 of Malone’s Drug Information
• Experience

Question 4

When to use a primary resource?

Answer 4

• Very specific
• New up-to-date information
• Look at raw data
• Complex question

Question 5

PICO

Answer 5

• To make searching primary resources easier:
• Patient or population
• Intervention
• Comparison
• Outcome

Question 6

Answers vs. Evidence and where to go for each

Answer 6

• Answers: one fact, tertiary sources
• Evidence: a whole bunch that proves, primary sources

Question 7

Types of Search Engines

Answer 7

• Crawlers: use a robot or spider or automatically search the internet on a regular basis and compile an index or database of websites found
• Directories: human-powered search engines
• Hybrids: a mix of directories and crawlers
• Meta: search several other search engines simultaneously and combines the results into a list

Question 8

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Answer 8

• Strategies, techniques and tactics used to obtain a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine
• What are they
  
  • # of key terms in a page
  • # of visits to page
  • what you visit (cookies)

Question 9

Wikipedia

Answer 9

• Not scholarly or evidence-based
• Anyone can add, edit or delete entries
• Information can be wrong

Question 10

Google Scholar

Answer 10

• Search all scholarly literature from one place
• Explore related works
• Located complete documents
• Aren’t regularly searching journals
• Not a systematic way

Question 11

How to evaluate a website:

Answer 11

• Accuracy
  
  • Spellcheck, citations
• Authority
  
  • HON, institution, degrees, funding, .gov
• Bias/Objectivity
• Currency/Timeliness
• Coverage

Question 12

Side Effects

Answer 12

• Micromedex
• Facts and Comparisons

Question 13

Breaking News

Answer 13

• Google
• PubMed

Question 14

Immunization Schedules

Answer 14

• Micromedex
• Careprovider toolkit on HSL website
• UpToDate

Question 15

Cost Comparison

Answer 15

• Redbook
• Dynamed
• Pharmacy Wholesaler

Question 16

Facts and Comparisons

Answer 16

• ​Editied by physician, nurse, pharmacists
• natural products, drug product identification, manufacturer’s index, and patient education handouts
• some parts of monographic information can only be found at the drug category level

Question 17

Micromedex

Answer 17

• proprietary database providing monographic information similar to eFacts
• editorial board consists of numerous international health care experts
• clear, hierarchical outlines of monographs where you will find the incidence of adverse effects clearly stated and referenced within their individual monographs
  *

Question 18

Google

Answer 18

• good place to find a mention of uncommon topics
• remember that not everything you read on the web can be relied upon

Question 19

PubMed

Answer 19

• citation to studies featured in breaking news
• provided citations are loaded immediately with full indexing added later
• option for direct linkout to fulltext articles
  *

Question 20

UpToDate

Answer 20

• very popular resource for clinicians
• summaries on common clinical situations written by named subject experts and updated regularly
• Easy to use with friendly interfaces

Question 21

Redbook

Answer 21

• only known source of average wholesale cost
• via online subscription
  *

Question 22

Dynamed

Answer 22

• ​database available by subscription, provides bullet point summaries of current clinical topics
• Includes retail price estimates drawn from drugstore.com

Question 23

Pharmacy Wholesaler

Answer 23

• true wholesale cost information from the direct supplier to your pharmacy
• May not provide wholesale cost from other suppliers

Question 24

Drug in pregnancy

• Category C

Answer 24

• Micromedex
• LactMed
• Studies in animals have revealed that thereare risks to the fetus or no data from studies onwomen or animals is available. Medicationshould only be given if risks to the fetus can bejustified by the potential benefit.

Question 25

Drug Identification

Answer 25

• Micromedex
• Pillbox
• Facts and Comparisons

Question 26

• Herbs, supplements, homeopathic, natural
• Evidence grade

Answer 26

• Natural Medicine Comprehensive Database
• Natural Standard
• A-F, C is unclear, A is strong positive, F is strong negative

Question 27

Drug Cost

Answer 27

• Dynamed
• AHFS

Question 28

Dosing

Answer 28

• AHFS
• Facts and Comparisons
• Micromedex
• Gold Standard

Question 29

Onset/Time to Effect

Answer 29

• Up to date
• AHFS
• Micromedex
• FandC

Question 30

Three Reasons FDA requires medication guides to be dispensed

Answer 30

1. Certain information is necessary to prevent serious adverse effects
2. Patient decision-making should be informed by information about a known serious side effectwith a product
3. Patient adherence to directions for the use of a product are essential to its effectiveness