14 Feb 2022 International Study Finds Drug Safety Advisories Affect Prescribing
In a unique international study, researchers found that drug safety advisories issued by regulators regularly led to reductions in prescribing of those treatments. Published in BMJ Quality & Safety, this study measured the impact on prescribing of drug warnings issued in four countries between 2009 and 2015. The drug warnings related to 19 different drug classes.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
14 Feb 2022
International Study Finds Drug Safety Advisories Affect Prescribing
Warnings from Regulators Make Prescription Drug Use Safer
Vancouver, BC. Often advisories communicate new information about a drug’s potential risk of serious harms, which may not have been known when the drug first entered the market. Among these warnings issued by regulators in Canada, Denmark, the UK, and the US, they found:
- Impact of advisories on drug use varied widely but on average drug use decreased by 5.8%.
- Many advisories showed little or no impact on drug use, but others led to much higher decreases. Following an FDA warning about azithromycin, a widely used antibiotic which is associated with potentially fatal irregular heart rhythms, its use dropped by 14.3% in the US. In Canada, a Health Canada warning about the acne drug isotretinoin and rare severe skin reactions led to a 13.7% decrease in use of the drug in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
Analyzing monthly drug use for 2 years before and 1 year after each drug warning, researchers determined that about 4 in every 10 advisories led to a decrease in drug use of over 5 percent.
“Our study shows that when prescribers learn of new drug safety information, they can alter their prescribing to make better and safer prescribing decisions,” said Richard Morrow, the study’s lead researcher based at the University of British Columbia.
The study is available online at https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/early/2022/01/19/bmjqs-2021-013910 and will be in the March issue of BMJ Quality & Safety.
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For further information or to arrange an interview with the research team contact:
Alan Cassels, Communications Director
Therapeutics Initiative +1250-508-8996 | alan.cassels@ubc.ca | @akecassels
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