Objective: In clinical practice, electronic databases are used to detect drug interactions. In this study, it is aimed to identify potential interactions in the treatment of critically ill patients and to compare the severity category of these interactions according to 4 different electronic databases frequently used by clinicians.
Method: In this prospective and cross-sectional study; patients aged 18 years and older who were treated in the intensive care unit of a university hospital between December 6, 2021 and April 4, 2022, and who had at least two drugs in their treatment were included. The drug treatments of these patients were evaluated daily by a clinical pharmacist and 4 different databases were used to detect drug interactions (UpToDate®, Micromedex®, Medscape® and TEBRP®, ).
Results: The compatibility of the severity categories of 419 different potential drug interactions detected in the UpToDate®, Micromedex®, Medscape® databases were compared according to the Fleiss Kappa statistic. According to this analysis; It was determined that the Kappa coefficient was 0.0493 and there was a low level of statistical agreement in terms of the severity categories specified by the electronic databases for drug interactions (p<0.05).
Conclusion: There may be differences between the databases in terms of the severity category and interpretation of the interactions. The involvement of clinical pharmacists who are specialized in the multidisciplinary team in intensive care units will contribute to the management of drug interactions.