TY - JOUR T1 - Assessment of adverse drug event recognition by emergency physicians in a French teaching hospital JF - Emergency Medicine Journal JO - Emerg Med J SP - 63 LP - 67 DO - 10.1136/emermed-2011-200482 VL - 30 IS - 1 AU - Lucien Roulet AU - Françoise Ballereau AU - Jean-Benoît Hardouin AU - Anne Chiffoleau AU - Leïla Moret AU - Gilles Potel AU - Nathalie Asseray Y1 - 2013/01/01 UR - http://emj.bmj.com/content/30/1/63.abstract N2 - Objectives The frequency and the severity of drug-related visits in emergency department (ED) make the improvement of adverse drug event (ADE) recognition a crucial issue. As part of a research project aiming to improve the diagnosis and the management of ADEs in ED, the authors conducted a pilot study whose primary objective was to assess ADE recognition by emergency physicians. Methods The patients presenting to the ED were included at randomised time periods between 1 October 2007 and 31 March 2008 in this prospective cross-sectional study. The primary outcome was the frequency of ADEs that were attributed to a medication-related problem by the emergency physician. Results A total of 423 patients met the inclusion criteria, of which 95 experienced an ADE (22.5%; 95% CI 18.6% to 26.7%). Emergency physicians correctly attributed 33 of these cases (34.7%; 95% CI 25.3% to 45.2%) to a medication-related problem. Of the 28 cases in which the ADE was considered as a ‘direct drug effect’ (29.5%; 95% CI 20.6% to 39.7%), 16 were correctly identified by emergency physicians (57.1%; 95% CI 37.2% to 75.5%). Of the 67 cases in which the ADE was considered as a ‘drug involvement in a multifactorial pathological condition’ (70.5%; 95% CI 60.3% to 79.4%), 17 were correctly attributed (25.4%; 95% CI 15.5% to 37.5%). Conclusions ADEs are frequent in EDs and are not well recognised by emergency physicians, especially when the drug is involved in a multifactorial pathological condition. ER -