Relevance of drug-drug interaction in the ICU - perceptions of intensivists and pharmacists.

Relevancy of potential drug-drug interactions (pDDIs) is crucial in alerting system design. However, the way this relevancy is perceived is not well understood. The main objective of this study was to gauge and identify differences in perceptions of intensivists and pharmacists about pDDI relevancy in the ICU. Interactions were defined according to the national medication database using a computerized algorithm. Intensivists and pharmacists filled in a questionnaire to score their perceptions on relevancy of encountered pDDIs types. We conducted a focus group session to discuss pDDIs receiving markedly different relevancy scores. The questionnaire addressed 53 pDDI types. Pharmacists rated 29 pDDI types (54.7%) in the broad category "relevant" versus 16 (30.2%) for intensivists (p-value<0.001). The pharmacists and intensivists gave the same scores for 23 pDDI types (12 as relevant, and 11 as not relevant), and scored 30 types differently. The focus group discussion resulted in a total of 36 relevant and 17 not relevant types. Compared to the pharmacists in this panel, the intensivists were less inclined to consider a pDDI type as relevant. It is important to tailor medication databases with information about evidence and severity of pDDIs to the environment in which they are used.