[Drug surveillance project based on nursing practice]

Nurses can play a very important role in reporting adverse drug reactions (ADRs) or adverse events, thus producing information that complement information already available. The role of reporting improves the safety of drugs, alerting about new hazards and recommending new practices to be followed. Current reporting practices fall short of these objectives and nurses rarely play an active role in reporting. A proposal for a research project on nursing drug surveillance is presented. The aims of the project are: A. To produce an epidemiology of ADRs and their attributability to drugs, therapies and procedures, focusing on specific populations: children, elderly, intensive care patients and patients with medical, infectious and neurological problems. B. To describe the strategies for preventing and treating ADRs. C. To make a register of "classic" ADRs such as bone fractures and gastrointestinal bleedings. D. To monitor the hospitalisations potentially attributable to an unsatisfactory management of chronic treatments. The project will involve mainly nurses and will combine quantitative and qualitative methods.