Assessment and utilization of a pharmacist-assisted drug and poison information centre in Pakistan

To evaluate the utilization of the pharmacist-operated Drug and Poison Information Center (DPIC) services in Pakistan.

All queries from 2015-2017 were retrieved from Pharm Assist DPIC database and were retrospectively analyzed. The variables obtained for analysis were call types (drug or poison), type of callers, type of drug queries, and type of poison queries.

A total of 2209 queries were analyzed. The highest queries in the year 2015, 2016 and 2017 came from general public as 44.0%, 56.3%, and 80.6%, followed by consultants as 11.4%, 7.3%, 4.4%, general physicians as 7.20%, 3.40%, and 3.85%. Students and interns show least usage with students 2.20%, 2.30%, 0.29% and interns 0.27%, 0.23%, 0.09% in the year 2015, 2016 and 2017 respectively. The most frequent queries received at Pharm Assist DPIC were related to miscellaneous queries (14.7%), indications (13.6%), strength (13.4%) and drug availability (12.1%). The majority of poison calls were for ingestion (80.3%), followed by animal bite (6.6%), dermal contact (5.5%), injection (2.2%) and inhalation (2.2%).

It was concluded that as the awareness of our service enhanced, the utilization also increased. In order to have enhanced usage of the service, more frequent awareness activities need to be performed to have improved patient care.