FDA Reports Are Slow to Effect Prescribing Behaviors
FDA
Medscape (2/15, Hitt) reports, “Many US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drug-risk communications have a delayed effect, or no effect on drug monitoring or prescribing behaviors, according to the findings of a new report” published online Jan. 18 in the journal Medical Care.
After analyzing data from 49 studies which “covered 16 drugs or therapeutic classes,” Notably, “inappropriate coprescribing seemed to decrease over time, although the authors found that clinical practice seemed to be ‘slow to respond to such warnings, often taking years.’” In addition, “according to the authors, advisories that were sent out more than once had more of an effect in decreasing new medication use than they did in reducing use overall.”
Also noted in the report, “Drug specific warnings were associated with particularly large decreases in utilization, although the magnitude of substation within therapeutic classes varied across clinical contexts.”
