A STRUCTURED MEDICATION QUESTIONNAIRE TO EVALUATE THE CORRECTNESS OF THE MEDICATION ANAMNESIS

This study evaluates the opportunity of using a Structured Medication Questionnaire (SMQ) for drug anamnesis to better identify current medication and to potentially reduce medication errors. The hypothesis is that using a SMQ the accuracy of medical anamnesis can be improved and the drug errors regarding the hospitalized patients can be reduced. The study was a pilot, interventional, pre-post, single-arm study design. The study enrolled all consecutive patients admitted to a cardiology ward in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in 2 weeks-interval in February - March 2020. Fifty-six patients included in this study had a total of 429 drugs identified by SMQ compared to 338 drugs in the observation sheets (26.9% more drugs identified). Fortythree patients (76.78%) had at least one registration error in prescription drugs; if dietary supplements are added, forty-nine patients (87.5%) had at least one registration error. The classes of drugs where the most common errors were identified, were the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (ATC code M01A), the psycholeptics (ATC code N05) and the ophthalmic products, with 7 errors each (7.6% of the total errors by omission). A structured questionnaire implemented in the patient interview may improve the accuracy of the medication history and may reduce the frequency of omission errors.