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Prescription‐related illness – a scandalous pandemic
Author(s) -
McGavock Hugh
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of evaluation in clinical practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.737
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1365-2753
pISSN - 1356-1294
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2753.2003.00471.x
Subject(s) - medical prescription , pandemic , medicine , covid-19 , family medicine , medical emergency , intensive care medicine , nursing , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty)
Prescribed drugs are now a major cause of morbidity and mortality, particularly in the elderly. The extent of this pandemic is described and its likely causes in primary care are identified: unnecessary prescribing, imprecise diagnosis, inadequate undergraduate and postgraduate education in pharmacology and therapeutics, the uncritical application of evidence‐based medicine, the outstanding development of new drugs and their sometimes unjustified promotion. Urgent action is recommended under seven headings, by health administration, epidemiologists, medical educators and prescribing doctors.