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Medications sometimes result in often preventable hospital admissions

Over the past decade, the number of patients admitted to hospital in France for adverse effects associated with drug treatments has not decreased. There are lessons to be learned and improvements to be made.

A nationwide French pharmacovigilance survey in 2007 studied hospital admissions for adverse effects caused by drug treatments. The partial results, published, after some delay, at the end of 2008, suggest a number of not very satisfying conclusions.

According to this survey, around 3.6% of the patients admitted to hospital in France in 2007 (or some 144,000 people) were suffering from a drug-treatment-related adverse effect.

Haemorrhages and falls are the most frequent cause of hospital admissions for adverse effects of drug treatments. The main classes implicated are drugs for the nervous system, the cardiovascular system (diuretics), anticoagulants, cancer treatments and immunosuppressants. Fifty percent of the time, the adverse effect was considered preventable or "potentially" preventable. Some 30% of adverse effects were associated with an interaction with another drug.

In France, since 1997, three large-scale national surveys have assessed the frequency of adverse effects: this frequency has barely altered in 10 years. France's healthcare system clearly has made no progress in this area.

There are serious lessons to be learned, despite the French Medicines Agency's lack of transparency on this subject.

©Prescrire October 2009
 
"Hospitalisation for drug-related adverse effects in France" Prescrire Int 2009; 18 (103): 216 (pdf, subscribers only)
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