Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to analyze the quality of the information contained in the adverse drug reactions (ADR) reports and to describe the magnitude and characteristics of the lacking information.
Methods
All reports of serious ADR received by the Catalan Center of Pharmacovigilance in 2014 were analyzed using the VigiGrade and a more clinical and qualitative approach.
Results
Up to 824 reports describing serious ADR were included in the study; of them, 503 (61.0%) were sent by health care professionals (HPs) and the remaining 321 (39.0%) came from pharmaceutical companies (PhC). More than 80% of missing variables such as ‘onset date’ or ‘time-to-onset’ of the ADR were from PhCs reports. ‘Onset of treatment date’ was not filled in 28 (22.2%) of the reports including an ‘additional monitoring’ medicine, and ‘end of treatment’ date was not completed in 53 of those reports (42.1%). In summary, 39% of the reports involving a black triangle medicine sent by PhCs lacked some essential information such as the onset date of treatment.
Conclusions
More than one third of the reports coming from manufacturers did not include information that is considered a limiting factor to evaluate any causal relationship, and can be an issue for the detection of safety signals. To take advantage of this huge amount of potentially important information that is almost useless at present, data mining tools and new algorithms should be developed and tested with the aim of finding formulas to deal with a huge amount of low quality data without losing it, nor generating a number of false associations.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the Departament de Salut de la Generalitat de Catalunya, a government institution of Catalonia.
Contributions of authors
Lorraine Plessis designed the initial study protocol, retrieved and selected the reports, analyzed and discussed the results and prepared the first draft of the manuscript.
Ainhoa Gómez contributed to the data analyses and prepared tables for the discussion of results. She also participated in the discussion of the manuscript draft, and improved the last version of the manuscript.
Núria Garcia trained LP in the use of the FEDRA Database, contributed to the data analyses and prepared tables for the discussion of results. She also participated in the discussion of the manuscript draft, and improved the last version of the manuscript.
Gloria Cereza participated in the design of the study protocol, coordinated the meetings to discuss the assessment of the included reports, indicated the results to be included in the manuscript and actively participated in the first draft review.
Albert Figueras proposed the idea of the study, contributed to the study protocol, participated in the general results discussions and reviewed the second draft of the manuscript and prepared the final draft.
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Plessis, L., Gómez, A., García, N. et al. Lack of essential information in spontaneous reports of adverse drug reactions in Catalonia—a restraint to the potentiality for signal detection. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 73, 751–758 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-017-2223-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-017-2223-5