How can I view the side effects of any drug and make sense of it, and gather some insights? Will I have to know the adverse drug reaction type? Or the frequency of the reaction?
As exogenous chemicals, almost all drugs have undesired effects (or side effects) other than the desired pharmacological effect. What matters in general in using drugs for therapy is a benefit-risk analysis. Which is more beneficial/or risky for the patient? a disease condition due to lack of therapy? or a side effect following the therapy? Yes, I think it is good to know how severe is a particular disease condition, adverse drug rxn type as well as the frequency of the reaction before prescribing or dispensing a particular drug for therapy. In fact, there may be also many other factors that can be considered for enhanced patient outcomes. The factors include demographic factors, genetic factors, factors related to drugs, such as drug-drug, drug-food, drug-drink, drug-disease interactions, drug doses, drug quality and stability etc...
Drug reaction or adverse effects are depends on many factors as mentioned by Mr.Alemu. Our body is a wonder a specific design, in some patients no adverse reaction are seen but in others these are seen; in some the drug acts as allergen in response to this antigen reacts in producing different reactions like Nausea, Vomiting, Diarrhea, Skin rashes, Itching, Fever and in rare condition anaphylactic shock may occur. Any adverse sign or symptom should be considered as adverse reaction in general, some drug specific adverse reactions are may be seen.
Dear Mostafa, I do agree with both answers provided by experts. Rather, I would like you to scrutinize what actually you are looking for? is it a side effect? or adverse events? here, you can find a brief differentiation between both: http://www.pharmacytimes.com/contributor/shelby-leheny-pharmd-candidate-2017/2017/02/adverse-event-not-the-same-as-side-effect.
Then, you may decide which one of interest for your study and how it makes sense to your research i.e. do you want to estimate incidence? or do you want to assess severity? or do you plan to look for off label use? or do you want to study the underlying mechanism?
In brief, I would like to say that getting insight to or make sense of a side effect, will depend mainly on your research objectives.
Regards,
Thank you all for your answers!
@Mohamed Hassan Elnaem My objective is to be able to analyze adverse reactions for any drug as a Pharmacist.
I suggest you take a look at the public protocols of institutions such as WHO or the European Union
I fully agree with all answers posted before. However, as a pharmacist, especially working in a clinical setting, you might also be interested in the relevance of adverse effects - taking into account duration of treatment/exposure, co-medication, age of patients, severity of effects etc.
Lastly, communication is key - what do you tell your patient and how?
Some further reads:
http://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/glossary?view=110 (SPC for different drugs)
Article STOPP/START criteria for potentially inappropriate prescribi...
Hope, this helps!
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