As a chronic kidney disease (CKD) patient, you are likely prescribed multiple medications to treat your CKD and underlying conditions. Unfortunately, some studies have found polypharmacy (the use of five or more medications) to be linked to drug-related problems. Prescription drugs require a doctor’s order as some drugs interact negatively with others or cause adverse reactions. 

An increasing number of drug-drug interactions (DDIs) and adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are being seen in CKD patients and many healthcare professionals are concerned. Discover more about DDIs and ADRs in CKD patients and the findings from one study on their prevalence in hospital patients.* 

What the Researchers Did 

For the study, which was conducted in the United Arab Emirates, researchers collected data from 130 adult CKD patients at Ibrahim Bin Hamad Obaidullah Hospital. The majority were males between the ages of 61 and 70. Data were obtained from electronic patient case records. Medications prescribed to the patients were analyzed for potential DDIs, and suspected ADRs related to prescribed drugs were also evaluated for cause, severity, preventability, and predictability. 

What They Found

The research team found that the average number of drugs prescribed was 11.1 per patient. The incidence (new cases) of ADRs was 10.7%. The majority of suspected ADRs were mild to moderate in severity and were non-preventable. 

Polypharmacy was positively identified as an independent predictor of potential DDI (pDDI) occurrence. The prevalence of pDDIs was 89.2%. Diagnoses of dyslipidemia (high cholesterol) and diabetes increased the probability of pDDI occurrence by 2.7 and 1.2 times, respectively, and the likelihood of a pDDI increased with every one-day increase in hospital stay duration. 

What it means

Based on the findings, ADRs and DDIs are a growing concern among the CKD population, particularly in a hospital setting. Prevention, identification, and resolution of these drug-related problems are imperative and can be achieved through medication optimization. Healthcare members, both inpatient and outpatient, should work to improve this through collaboration between physicians, pharmacists, and related healthcare professionals.

*Shouqair, T. M., Rabbani, S. A., Sridhar, S. B., & Kurian, M. T. (2022, April 10). Evaluation of Drug-Related Problems in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients. Cureus. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.24019