Nurses are increasingly involved in pharmacogivilance in Sweden

Abstract

Introduction: In Sweden, voluntary adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting started over 40 years ago to detect rare, serious, unexpected adverse, mainly type B, reactions. During the period 1965-2004, 92 000 reports were assessed. Since certain nurses are licensed to prescribe a limited number of drugs, nurses also form part of the reporting team. Aim: To analyse the ADR reporting by nurses in Sweden. Methods: All reports by nurses and other health-care personnel entered into the Swedish ADRs database SWEDIS (Swedish Drug Information System) were retrieved for the 10-year period 1995-2004 (Swedish population: 9 million). The intention was to analyse the nurses' reports from a quantitative and qualitative point of view. Results: The total number of ADR reports has gradually increased during the past 10 years from 3000 to over 4000 in 2004 (465 per million inhabitants), an increase by 28%. All ADR reports originate from health care personnel. The nurses' contribution to the ADR reporting increased from 2-3% in the mid-90s to 12% in 2004. The most common drugs involved in the nurses' reporting were various kinds of vaccines. Skin reactions dominated among the nurses' ADR reports. The ADRs reported by nurses were, as a consequence of many vaccine reports, compared to all reports, not so often classified as serious, but were on the other hand more often assessed with a causal relationship. Conclusions: Nurses, in their position as drug administrators who record signs and symptoms of the patients, play an increasingly important role for detection of suspected ADRs and are now contributing to a significant amount of the ADR reporting in Sweden. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.