Introduction:

A clinical drug literature is basically a document containing all the

information including (but not limited)

 Side /adverse effects

 Drug interactions
 Uses
 Teratogenicity
 Stability
 Compatibility
 Product identification and availability
 Dosages and administration
 Toxicity
 Pharmacokinetics
 Pharmacodynamics
 Pharmacogenomics
 Health related quality of life
 Pharmacoeconomics

and efficacy including the comparative efficacy among drugs in the same pharmacological or
chemical class as well as drugs from other classes

Accessing, reviewing, analyzing, evaluating and interpreting the clinical drug literature are
important responsibilities of the health care professionals and particularly for the
pharmacists who are expert on the drugs.

The advances in computer technology, continual growth of internet and widespread

availability of the database search capabilities have placed unprecedented amounts of
information into individuals grasp.

In particular healthcare professionals are also now moving to internet as an information

resource but the key responsibilities of the entire healthcare professionals is to differentiate
good from poor quality information and indentifying the strength and limitations of
information and applying it to information they obtain to patient care.

SELECTION OF LITERATURE:
 A key activity of modern healthcare providers
particularly pharmacist is conducting literature searches to locate complete, up-to-date and
valid information upon which patient care decisions can be made.

A term medical informatics has been defined as the rapidly developing science which deals
with the storage, retrieval and optimal use of biomedical information data, and knowledge
for problem solving and decision making.

Health professionals must be familiar with not only the variety of literature sources but also
to analyze, interpret and evaluate them.

Different types of literatures with their little introduction are

Types of clinical drug literature:

There are three types of clinical drug literature

i. Tertiary sources
ii. Secondary sources
iii. Primary sources

i. Tertiary sources:

Consist of general reference books and texts when basic information on

topics such as pharmacotherapeutics, toxicology or drug interaction is needed then
tertiary literature source is the best means of starting the learning process and also
provide references.

ii. Secondary sources:

Literature used to identify and locate primary and other resources

consist of bibliographies, abstracting services, and indexing services. Pharmacist should
use it when extensive information is needed.

iii. Primary sources:

Consist of original studies and reports in journals, monographs and

proceedings and symposia. They should be consulted when making recommendations
regarding therapy for the disease states or looking for new or investigational drugs
information or uses.

EVALUATION OF LITERATURE:
 Once acceptable sources of information are
identified and retrieved, the pharmacist must analyze and evaluate the published literature
and develop recommendations based on best available data.

An understanding of searching techniques, research design and biostatistics is important in

evaluating a literature.

Pharmacist should critically evaluate study methods and results to ensure they are
sufficiently valid to produce useful information.

Special care must be taken when reviewing promotional literature and using pharmaceutical
sales representatives as sources of drug and drug related information.

The successful pharmacy practitioner should have the skills to critically evaluate a literature
and to draw their own conclusions based on a study`s merits, rather than simply relying on
author`s conclusions.

In general medical studies can be divided into 2 broader general types

 Descriptive
 Explanatory

 Descriptive:

It is used to simply record data from observations. This study is employed to

document and communicate experiences that the author feels are important to bring to the
attention of medical community. This study describes new or unusual events. This study is
further divided into

 Case reports (based on observations of individual patient)

 Case series (based on observations from group or series of patients)

 Explanatory:

These studies use a more strict design to identify answers to questions that
arise in clinical medicine. This design is employed to determine efficacy of medicine or its
effects. This is further divided into

 Observational (examine natural course of health events gather data about subjects
and then classify & sort the data)
 Experimental (prospective trials in which intervention occurs on part of the
investigators and may be controlled or uncontrolled)

COMMUNICATION OF LITERATURE:
 Pharmacist in an expert for the
communication of the literature to other healthcare practitioners and patients as well. He
should be well equipped with the terms used in the literature.

Clinicians are often interested in obtaining a comprehensive summary of the available

information on a specific topic instead of individual studies.

Review articles constitute one type of publication, a systematic overview, used for
summarizing literature on a certain subject. These reviews compile published information on
broad aspects of a topic and offer recommendations. One advantage of the review articles is
that it provides a healthcare practitioner who might know little about a specific subject with
a summary of much of published information on that topic allowing the practitioner to be
up-to-date with the topic quickly.

Unlike qualitative review article a meta-analysis is a summary article that provides

quantitative data and uses statistical data to reach to a conclusion.

But review articles and meta-analysis are not based on a focused clinical question, might not
include criteria used by author in locating the relevant material, might not include validity of
studies included etc. So a secondary source of information is very useful in communication
of a literature.

Always furnish other health care professionals and patients with comprehensive, to the
point, in a well behavior and up-to-date information up to their satisfaction.

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ASSIGNMENT
 Utilization of Clinical Drug
Literature

SUBMITTED BY:

ALI HUSSAIN

ROLL NO:

306-P-078

DISCIPLINE:

PHARM-D

SUBMITTED TO:

SIR HAFEEZ

SUBJECT:

CLINICAL
PHARMACY

TEACHER REMARKS:

__________________________________________