Optimising Drug Prescribing and Improving Medication Management: What Can We Do?
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2021) | Viewed by 31342
Special Issue Editors
Interests: drug utilization research; medication adherence; prescribing quality indicators; pharmacoepidemiology; health services research and behavioural interventions
Interests: medication adherence; drug utilization research; pharmaceutical policies; prescribing quality indicators
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has referred to non-adherence to medication as “a worldwide problem of striking magnitude” and “one of the two largest unsolved gaps in health care” (the other being “suboptimal prescription of medication”). Medication-related morbidity and mortality is a major public health care concern and a significant burden on health care resources. In recent years, there has been an increase in the development and availability of new and efficacious medications with positive benefit-to-risk profiles, but there has also been an increase in the use of unnecessary and non-clinically-indicated drugs, drug interactions, adherence problems, drug costs and adverse drug events.
Optimizing prescribing is essential to ensure medicines are taken as intended and that significant clinical and economic costs of drug-related illness are minimized through the effective management of chronic conditions, multimorbidity and polypharmacy. A number of criteria and screening tools have been developed to measure and assist prescribers in detecting potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP). These measures consist of drugs to be avoided independent of diagnosis or in the context of certain diagnoses. A taxonomy of adherence has also been developed to promote scientific studies of adherence. The taxonomy defines medication adherence “as the process by which patients take their medication as prescribed” and includes three components: (i) initiation (taking the first dose of prescribed medication); (ii) implementation (taking medication as prescribed); and (iii) discontinuation (stopping treatment).
This Special Issue aims to publish high-quality research and reviews that focus on medication adherence and the identification and prevention of adverse health outcomes and address prescribing quality, safety and effective medication management. Research may be based on any age group, context or setting; including a disease-specific clinical setting or the broader area of population health and health services research. Investigators who have conducted research on these topics are invited to submit manuscripts for consideration for this Special Issue of IJERPH.
Dr. Caitriona Cahir
Prof. Enrica Menditto
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- optimizing prescribing
- medication management
- adherence
- potentially inappropriate prescribing
- suboptimal prescribing
- health outcomes
- adverse events
- chronic disease
- polypharmacy
- multimorbidity
- population health
- drug utilization research
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