49 Performance of a trigger tool for detecting adverse drug reactions information by attending physicians. The introduction of information bias by physician’s notes and actions cannot be fully ruled out. For instance, the screening of trigger-drug combinations was based on information documented in admission letters and laboratory results were not examined as a primary source of triggers. A mild hyponatraemia with concomitant use of diuretics could potentially have been missed as trigger-drug combination if it was not mentioned as a clinical problem by the attending physician. However, the triggers listed in the ADR trigger tool are serious and admission letters were comprehensive, which makes underreporting of these triggers unlikely. Third, the definition of ‘recognition by usual care’ was not very specific since a documented event combined with discontinuation or a dose adjustment of the associated drug was also considered as being ‘recognised’ without explicit mention. However, this does not necessarily correspond with ADR recognition because drugs could be discontinued for other reasons (e.g. a lack of indication). In addition, the persistence of drug changes after hospital discharge was not evaluated in our study. A discontinuation or dose adjustment of the suspected drug was implemented by the attending physician in three quarters of ADRs, but previous research illustrated that a quarter of drugs discontinued because of an ADR were re-prescribed after admission [35]. In addition, this study was performed in a specific population of older patients with polypharmacy acutely admitted to a geriatric ward. The admission to a geriatric ward in an academic, teaching hospital could have biased the type and prevalence of certain trigger-drug combinations. For instance, patients presenting with fall and delirium are likely to be admitted to a geriatric ward; these clinical events were most prevalent in our population comprising more than half of all identified trigger-drug combinations. Consequently, these two triggers had the largest impact on the overall PPV of the ADR trigger tool. In contrast, the clinical event ‘intracranial bleeding’ was absent in our population and thus had no impact on the overall PPV. Acutely admitted patients with an intracranial bleeding are more likely to be admitted to a neurosurgical ward instead of a geriatric ward. Furthermore, geriatric residents and their supervisors in an academic, teaching hospital may be more focused on ADR recognition compared to other medical specialties. For these reasons, the generalisation of ADR prevalence and ADR recognition are limited. Lastly, the PPV was not stratified for different patient populations because the availability of baseline patient characteristics was limited. Implications The ADR trigger tool detected ADRs in more than half (52%) of all patients with polypharmacy acutely admitted to the geriatric ward. Combining the ADR trigger 2
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