Relevance of drug-drug interaction in the ICU - perceptions of intensivists and pharmacists

Relevancy of potential drug-drug interactions (pDDIs) is crucial in alerting system design. However, the way this relevancy is perceived is not well understood. The main objective of this study was to gauge and identify differences in perceptions of intensivists and pharmacists about pDDI relevancy in the ICU. Interactions were defined according to the national medication database using a computerized algorithm. Intensivists and pharmacists filled in a questionnaire to score their perceptions on relevancy of encountered pDDIs types. We conducted a focus group session to discuss pDDIs receiving markedly different relevancy scores. The questionnaire addressed 53 pDDI types. Pharmacists rated 29 pDDI types (54.7%) in the broad category "relevant" versus 16 (30.2%) for intensivists (p-value