著者

河添 仁 飯原 なおみ 土居 智明 森田 修之

出版者

公益社団法人日本薬学会

雑誌

藥學雜誌 (ISSN:00316903)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.125, no.12, pp.959-969, 2005-12-01

被引用文献数

2

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The proclamation of April 2002 of a Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare ordinance has enabled doctors to prescribe drugs for an outpatient without a limit on the length of prescription terms except for a few drugs. There is a concern that the prescription-term deregulation could cause careless drug therapy management in order to extend the interval between patient hospital visits. The purpose of this study is to make pre- and post-deregulation comparisons of two items, prescription terms and implementation of clinical examination that complied with package-insert precautions, and to discuss the approaches to increase safety. Prescription terms have lengthened progressively. In the preregulation period of January to March 2002, the mean prescription term was 19.9 days; in the post-regulation period of July to September 2002, it was 24.9 days; and in July to September 2003, 28.6 days. Even for anti-tumor agents, there were prescriptions over 90 days after deregulation. There was no significant difference between the pre- and post-deregulation compliance ratios for the package-insert precautions in eight drugs of investigated nine. However, one case had a delay in detection of liver dysfunction, which was caused by deviation from the once-a-month testing indicated in the package-insert precautions for prolonged prescription terms. The evidence suggested that the deregulation led to negligent drug therapy management. To assure safe therapy, the following should be addressed : first, sufficient function of a computerized prescriber order entry system and second, creation of a new framework with pharmacists' active involvement such as collaborative therapy management with physicians.