Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To examine medication administration records through electronic health record data to provide a broad description of the pharmaceutical exposure of critically ill children.
DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study using the Cerner Health Facts database.
SETTING: United States.
PATIENTS: A total of 43,374 children 7 days old to less than 22 years old receiving intensive care with available pharmacy data.
INTERVENTIONS: None.
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: A total of 907,440 courses of 1,080 unique medications were prescribed with a median of nine medications (range, 1-99; 25-75th percentile, 5-16) per patient. The most common medications were acetaminophen, ondansetron, and morphine. Only 45 medications (4.2%) were prescribed to more than 5% of patients, and these accounted for 442,067 (48.7%) of the total courses of medications. Each additional medication was associated with increased univariate risk of mortality (odds ratio, 1.05; 95% CI, 1.05-1.06; p < 0.001).
CONCLUSIONS: Children receiving intensive care receive a median of nine medications per patient and one quarter are prescribed at least than 16 medications. Only 45 medications were prescribed to more than 5% of patients, but these accounted for almost half of all medication courses.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | E679-E685 |
| Journal | Pediatric Critical Care Medicine |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 1 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2020 Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- critical care
- medication
- pediatrics
- pharmacology
- prescription
- United States
- Humans
- Young Adult
- Adult
- Critical Care
- Pharmaceutical Preparations
- Retrospective Studies
- Odds Ratio
- Child
- Electronic Health Records
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
- Journal Article
- Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural