ESTABLISHMENT OF DRUG

INFORMATION CENTRE AT
GOVERNMENT HEAD
QUARTERS HOSPITAL - OOTY
By
N.SABARINATHAN
Dept. of Pharmacy practice,
JSS college of Pharmacy
Ooty
 INTRODUCTION
• Drug Information is current, critically
examined relevant data about drug and drug
use in a given situation or a patient.

• A hospital based drug information centre

can be helpful not only for better patient
care but also in educational activities.
Why is Drug Information needed
in India?

• Irrational drug use

• Drug induced illness
• Lack of unbiased information
• Lack of evidence based therapy
 Sources of drug information
• Primary sources
• provide the most current information (source for
answering therapeutic questions)
• keeps abreast of professional news
• keeps up with new developments in pathophysiology,
diagnostic agents and therapeutic regimen
• Ex: American druggist, American journal of therapeutics,
Australian journal of hospital pharmacy, British medical
journal, The Lancet
• Secondary sources

• Indexing and Abstracting services

• Indexing services provide extensive bibliographies
• Abstracting services provide interpretations of work done
• valuable tools for quick and selective screening of articles
• Ex: ClinAlert, IDIS, and Medline
• Tertiary sources
• review articles and textbooks
• review articles provide two types of information - general
overviews and meta-analyses
• textbook provide easy and convenient access to a broad
spectrum of related topics
• background information on drugs and diseases available
• Ex: Avery’s drug treatment, Martindale,PDR,
MerkMannual, Harrison’s etc
 OBJECTIVE
• OBJECTIVES
• To establish an In-house Drug Information Centre at
GHQH - Ooty
• To assess the usefulness of the Drug Information
services among the Healthcare and allied Healthcare
providers of the hospital.
• To provide comprehensive and unbiased information
about drug and drug use which is currently lacking
in our country.
 SPECEFIC OBJECTIVES
• To serve the Heath and allied Healthcare
professionals and to promote better
patient care
• To promote rational use of drugs
• To analyze and classify the received DI
queries
• To assess the quality of Drug Information
Services provided
• Collecting feedback of the service
provided.
 METHODOLOGY
• Source of data
Drug information documentation form, Drug information
quality assurance form and Drug information feedback
questionnaire
Preparation and implementation of drug information
documentation form.
Preparation of drug information quality assurance form
Designing and circulation of drug information feedback
questionnaire
Result analysis
Classification of queries and analyzing them.
 CLASSIFICATION OF
QUERIES
• Queries received from • Mode of response
various wards used for answering the
• Type of inquirers queries
• Category of questions • Time specified and
• Mode of request Time taken for
answering the queries
• Number of queries
• Type of references
received per month
used for answering the
queries
 RESULTS
• Table No: 1 - Queries Received from Different Wards
• No. Wards No. of Queries Percentage
• 1 ICU & ICCU 50 33.33%
• 2 MMW 16 10.66%
• 3 FMW 14 09.33%
• 4 Others 70 46.33%

• Table no: 2 - Type of Inquirers

• No. Type of Inquirer No. of queries Percentage
• 1 Doctors 121 80.6%
• 2 PG Students 11 07.3%
• 3 Pharmacists 9 06%
• 4 Nurses 4 04.6%
• 5 Others 2 1.3%
 • Table no : 3 - Category of Questions (or) Type of Queries received
• No Category of questions No. of Queries Percentage
• 1 Education 66 44%
• 2 Drug therapy 18 12%
• 3 Administration 18 12%
• 4 ADR 15 10%
• 5 Interactions 09 06%
• 6 Availability & Cost 08 5.3%
• 7 Poisoning 04 2.6%
• 8 Indication / Contraindication 04 2.6%
• 9 Pharmacokinetics 04 2.6%
• 10 Pregnancy and Lactation 03 02%
• 11 Efficacy 01 0.6%
• 12 Others 03 02%
 • Table no: 4 - Mode of Request used for Drug Information Queries
• No Mode of Request No. of Queries Percentage
• 1 In Person 146 97.33%
• 2 Letter 2 1.33%
• 3 Phone 1 0.66%
• 4 Messenger 1 0.66%

• Table no: 5 - Mode of Response used for Answering Drug Information Queries
• No Mode of response No. of Queries Percentage
• 1 Oral 68 45.33%
• 2 Written 12 08%
• 3 Bibliography 37 24.66%
• 4 Literature 33 22%
 • Table no: 6 - Time Specified &Taken for Answering the Queries
• 6a. Time specified by the inquirer for answering the Drug Information Queries
• No Answer Needed No. of Queries Percentage
• 1 Immediate 73 48.66%
• 2 Same day 17 1.33%
• 3 Next day 18 12%
• 4 With in a week 20 13.33%
• 5 No time limit 22 14.66%
• 6b. Time taken for answering the Drug Information Queries
• S.No Time Taken No. of Queries Percentage
• 1 Immediate 60 40%
• 2 Same day 11 07.3%
• 3 Next day 17 11.33%
• 4 With in a week 40 26.66%
• 5 No time limit 22 14.66%
 DISCUSSIONS
• 150 Queries were provided with in a span
of 5 months ( 18.7.01 - 30.11.01)
• Majority of queries were related to
Education (44%) followed by
• Drug therapy , administration and dosage
(12%)
• ADR (10%)
• Interactions (6%)
• poison information's, Indication/
contraindication and Pharmacokinetics
(2.6%)
• Availability and cost (5.3%)
• Pregnancy and lactation (2%)
• Efficacy (0.6%)
• The tertiary sources were found to be the
widely used source 80.6% - for simple
questions the answers were found in the text
books
• Secondary sources(IDIS) were the next
widely used source for answering the
queries 10 % - for quick reference and
selective screening of articles
• Mode of response - the majority of answers were
provided in form of printouts 46.6% followed by oral
answers 45.33%
• Mode of request - In person 97.33% collecting the
queries became an easy task since the clinical pharmacy
students were involved in ward round participation
• the physicians were found to be the most beneficiaries, a
sum of 121 information's were provided to them which
contribute to 80.6% of total queries
• The results of feedback questionnaire and Quality
assurance questionnaire prove that the functioning
of the DIC was satisfactory to the healthcare
professionals of the GHQH, the results are as
follows
• Feedback questionnaire -75% - Good, 15% -
excellent and 10% - can improve
• Quality assurance – 70% - Good, 25% - excellent
and 5% - can improve
CONCLUSION
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
• Networking of drug
information service
with different drug
information centers
• To make the drug
information centre
operational on round-
the clock basis