Study Reveals Conflicting Views On Drug Side-Effect Tests

Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 04 Jan 2011 - 1:00 PDT


Tests that predict if a patient is likely to have a side-effect to a particular drug are likely to become commonplace in the years ahead but little research has been done into how such tests should be provided.

Researchers at the Universities of Manchester, Nottingham, Bangor and Adelaide set out to discover how patients and health care professionals viewed the side-effect tests and found differences of opinions between the two groups.

The study, commissioned by the UK Department of Health, found that while patients wanted accurate and timely information about why they should have a side-effect test and what the results mean, health care professionals appeared to focus almost entirely on the accuracy of the test and the waiting time for a test result.

Information about genetic variation in peoples' responses to medicines has informed the development of tests to predict the risk of specific side effects for certain medicines. These tests are called pharmacogenetic tests and the number of such tests available to patients is likely to increase in the future.

Lead author Dr Katherine Payne, said: "Using a test to predict the risk of a side effect is potentially a very good use of scarce healthcare resources but it is not currently known how best to provide such tests as part of a national health care service. This study was novel because we compared the views of patients and health care professionals and found their opinions about how the tests should be used differed markedly. Patients clearly wanted to receive good quality and timely information about whether to take such a test and what the test results mean. In contrast, health care professionals focused almost exclusively on the accuracy of the test and how long they would have to wait for the test result."

This will be discussed in Value in Health, the official journal of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and outcomes Research.

Value in Health publishes papers, concepts, and ideas that advance the field of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research and help health care leaders to make decisions that are solidly evidence-based. The journal is published bi-monthly and has a regular readership of over 5,000 clinicians, decision-makers, and researchers worldwide.

Source:
ISPOR

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