The impacts of medication shortages on patient outcomes: A scoping review

In recent years, medication shortages have become a growing worldwide issue. This scoping review aimed to systematically synthesise the literature to report on the economic, clinical, and humanistic impacts of medication shortages on patient outcomes. Medline, Embase, Global Health, PsycINFO and Int...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2019-05, Vol.14 (5), p.e0215837-e0215837
Main Authors: Phuong, Jonathan Minh, Penm, Jonathan, Chaar, Betty, Oldfield, Lachlan Daniel, Moles, Rebekah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Clinical outcomes
Cohort analysis
Drugs
Economics
English language
Global health
Health care
Humans
Medical care
Medical errors
Medical research
Medication errors
Medicine
Medicine and Health Sciences
Methods
Mortality
Out of pocket costs
Patient Outcome Assessment
Patients
People and Places
Pharmaceutical Preparations - supply & distribution
Pharmacy
Quality of life
Research and Analysis Methods
Shortages
Social Sciences
Systematic review
Tazobactam
Treatment Outcome
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Summary:In recent years, medication shortages have become a growing worldwide issue. This scoping review aimed to systematically synthesise the literature to report on the economic, clinical, and humanistic impacts of medication shortages on patient outcomes. Medline, Embase, Global Health, PsycINFO and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts were searched using the two key concepts of medicine shortage and patient outcomes. Articles were limited to the English language, human studies and there were no limits to the year of publication. Manuscripts included contained information regarding the shortage of a scheduled medication and had gathered data regarding the economic, clinical, and/or humanistic outcomes of drug shortages on human patients. We found that drug shortages were predominantly reported to have adverse economic, clinical and humanistic outcomes to patients. Patients were more commonly reported to have increased out of pocket costs, rates of drug errors, adverse events, mortality, and complaints during times of shortage. There were also reports of equivalent and improved patient outcomes in some cases. The results of this review provide valuable insights into the impact drug shortages have on patient outcomes. The majority of studies reported medication shortages resulted in negative patient clinical, economic and humanistic outcomes.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0215837