Collaborative assessment of misinformation in top online drug information compendia

What is it about?

Online drug information compendia, which are presumed to be accurate and complete, are often utilized by healthcare professionals and consumers as they are informative and readily available. However, previous studies have identified that these resources may contain misinformation, raising potential concerns related to patient safety. As a collaborative initiative, medical information specialists from 11 pharmaceutical companies proactively reviewed 270 drug summaries for 54 prescription drug products within 5 commonly-used online drug information compendia. Across the five compendia, a median of the total number of errors identified within drug summaries was 782 errors. The majority of errors were classified as incomplete (53%), followed by inaccurate (25%) and omitted (22%). This evaluation of a diverse sampling of drug summaries within commonly-used online drug information compendia further demonstrates that these resources may contain misinformation. As such, healthcare professionals and consumers should be aware of the potential for misinformation and utilize multiple resources including the Full Prescribing Information and Medication Guide, to obtain accurate, complete, and balanced drug information to aid in clinical decision making and help ensure the safer use of prescription drug products.

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Why is it important?

Healthcare professionals and consumers should be aware of the potential for misinformation in online drug information compendia and utilize multiple resources including the Full Prescribing Information and Medication Guide, to obtain accurate, complete, and balanced drug information to aid in clinical decision making and help ensure the safer use of prescription drug products.