The document outlines the role of clinical pharmacists in providing unbiased and up-to-date drug information services, which include answering queries, developing drug use guidelines, and educating healthcare professionals. It differentiates between primary, secondary, and tertiary literature, highlighting their sources, advantages, and disadvantages. The main objectives are to improve the rational use of medicines and promote patient care through an organized database and educational efforts.

1. Dr.Navaneethakrishnan PharmD.,
Assistant Professor
Department of Pharmacy Practice
DRUG INFORMATION
SERVICES

2. Introduction
 Fundamental responsibility of clinical pharmacist
 Unbiased, well referred, critically evaluated up to date
information to on any aspect of drug use
 Patient Specific or to a group of patients

3. Need of the concept
 The availability of more than 80,000 formulations makes it
very difficult for a person to remember all the formulations
and daily new formulations are being added.
 The national drug policy is industry focused rather than
health focused thus large number of new drugs is added
frequently
 Lack of awareness of the principles of rational drug use
among doctors, pharmacists and other health care
professionals.
 Widespread sale of prescription and over the counter
drugs.

4. Main Objectives
 To provide an organized database of specialized
information on medicines and therapeutics to meet the
drug information needs of practitioners.
 To educate pharmacy students to serve as effective
providers of medicines information.
 To provide accurate and unbiased medicines information
service to the pharmacists, physicians and other health care
professionals in the hospital and community.
 To promote patient care through rational use of medicines.

5. Drug Information Services
Support for clinical services
 Answering questions
 Developing guidelines for drug use
Pharmacy & Therapeutic Committee activity
 Development of Drug Use Policies
 Formulary management
Publications
 Newsletter, journal

6. Education
 In-service for health professionals, students
Drug Usage Evaluation
Investigational drug control
 Review board activities, information for practitioners,
protocol management and record management
Poisons information

7. Primary sources
Secondary
sources
Tertiary sources

8. Primary sources
 It is the source of information for the development of
secondary and tertiary literature resources.
 Primary literature is comprised of original research that is
written in the author(s) own words.
 It consists of research studies, case reports, editorials, and
letters to the editor.
 Most primary literature contains a detailed description of the
study design, methodology, and scientific results.

9. Examples:
 England Journal of Medicine
 Journal of the American Medical Association
 Archives of Internal Medicine
 Annals of Internal Medicine
 Lancet
 British Medical Journal.

10. Advantages
 Information from primary literature is current, original,
and "cutting-edge.“
 "peer-review process
Disadvantages
 With any research report, flaws in study methodology may
lead to inaccurate conclusions.
 Since the information presented in the primary literature is
so new, it may take time before wide acceptance occurs
throughout the medical community.

11. Secondary sources
 The secondary literature is compiled by indexing and
abstracting services that can be used to systematically
locate various types of published literature.
 The indexing system usually provides bibliographic
information indexed by topic and will allow the user to
view a brief description of the information within most
citations.
 Examples of secondary literature databases are PubMed
(Medline), Embase, National Library of Medicine Gateway,
International Pharmacy Abstracts, Scopus, and Toxline.

12. Advantages
 Provides quick access to the primary literature.
 Generally, the journal sources are peer reviewed and of a
high standard.
 With most resources, updated information can be sent to
you periodically, i.e. weekly or monthly
Disadvantages
 The time period between publication and inclusion (lag
time) into secondary sources can vary for each database,
from days to weeks.
 Medical databases organize the literature using Medical
Subject Headings

13. Tertiary sources
 Drug information contained in the tertiary literature is
generally well-established information that is approved
and accepted by the FDA or well founded in the primary
care literature.
 Tertiary references may be of textbooks on various drug or
disease topics
 Goodman and Gillman's Pharmacological Basis of
Therapeutics, Basic & Clinical Pharmacology, Handbook on
Injectable Drugs, and Clinical Pharmacology.

14. Advantages
 Tertiary references are convenient and accessible, especially
in light of their full text availability on the Internet.
 Drug information references may be divided into specific
subjects to make them easier to use.
 Usually the information contained in tertiary literature is
well accepted in medical practice.
Disadvantages
 Authors may emphasize limited information about a topic
or drug.
 In the case of print resources that are tertiary literature, any
updated or new information may need to be inserted into
the printed copy of the tertiary literature in a timely
fashion.

15. Thank you