07/14/2009 1 Comment Contact Our News Editors

Tuscon, AZ: Research led by The University of Arizona College of Pharmacy has found that medication prescribers correctly identified fewer than half of drug pairs with potentially dangerous drug-drug interactions.

The researchers, led by Daniel Malone, PhD, professor at the UA College of Pharmacy, mailed a questionnaire to
12,500 U.S. prescribers who were selected based on a history of prescribing drugs associated with known potential for drug-drug interaction. Prescribers were primarily physicians, physicians' assistants, and nurse practitioners. Recipients were asked to classify 14 drug pairs as "contraindicated," "may be used together but with monitoring" or "no interaction." Respondents could also state that they were "not sure." For the drug pairs, one commonly prescribed medication was matched with another commonly prescribed medication. The 950 respondents classified only 42.7 percent of all drug combinations correctly.