Drug-Drug interaction (DDIs)
The detected potential DDIs were classified based on severity of
interaction (31,32); 1) major DDI, which can cause life threating
problem or severe damage to the patient. 2) Moderate DDI, which can
cause some harm to the patient and affect his/her treatment, or his/her
clinical status, and 3) mild DDI, which can cause insignificant harm to
the patient, and usually unnoticeable. The potential DDIs were also
categorised based on scientific evidence of interaction to (31,32); 1)
Proven documentation, where the studies clearly established the
existence of the interaction, 2) Good Documentation, where strongly
suggest the presence of interaction, but controlled study are lacking,
and 3) Fair documentation, where studies poorly suggest the interaction,
but the clinicians suspect the interaction exists due to other factors.
Prescriptions were screened for potential DDI using Micromedex Drug
Reax© software (Thomson Reuters Inc., 2011).
Micromedex provides fast and accurate checking on type, and severity of
potential DDI (33).