Evaluation of a self-screening tool and patient alert cards to help patients identify and manage severe adverse drug reactions.

Abstract

Background: Few studies have examined the use of self-screening tools and patient alert cards (PAC) for screening adverse drug reactions (ADRs).

Aim: To evaluate the benefits of self-screening tools and PAC for screening ADRs.

Method: A prospective study of outpatients was conducted at a tertiary care teaching hospital. The sample included patients over 18 years of age who were currently taking one of four prescription medicines-methotrexate, sulfasalazine, cyclosporine, or prednisolone. A self-screening tool was distributed to patients in either hard copy or on-line format depending on patient preference. Simple random sampling was used to assign patients to either receive a PAC or not.

Results: A total of 922 self-screening tools were distributed with 709 returned (71.5%). Over half (n = 388) of the respondents reported a total of 3437 symptoms that they credited to their medication. The most commonly reported symptom was angioedema (15.8%). The majority of patients (76.7%) used the temporal relationship between the onset of symptoms and the administration of the drug to decide if their ADR was associated with the drug and this proportion was higher in respondents who selected the online self-screening tool (70.7% and 83.2%, p = 0.040). Half of the patients reported high satisfaction with their PACs.

Conclusion: Providing patients with a self-screening tool and a PAC supported patients to report more ADRs compared to rates for spontaneous reporting alone. We propose that they should be provided to all patients to increase ADR reporting and to encourage HCPs to provide drug information, thereby improving patient medication safety.