Conducting medication reviews is a method often recommended to identify and solve drug-related problems (Drug-related problems) in order to optimise drug treatment and to improve patient health outcomes. Drug-related problems can be defined as events involving drug treatment that are actually or potentially harmful to a patient’s health or prevent patients to optimally benefit from treatment.
The term medication review is used for a broad array of interventions, which are aimed to identify and solve Drug-related problems. A clinical medication review (CMR) entails a review involving communication with the patient while considering treatment in the context of the patient’s underlying condition and symptoms.
The advantage of patient involvement is the identification of more Drug-related problems and the possibility to identify Drug-related problems which are particularly relevant to the patient and therefore should be tackled with priority. The risk of Drug-related problems increases with age, number of diseases and number of drugs prescribed.
Older patients with polypharmacy are most likely to benefit from a medication review as they are more vulnerable to complications and admission to hospital caused by Drug-related problems.
