Availability of Antidotes in Hospital Pharmacies in the Czech Republic

Overview

Availability of antidotes in the Czech Republic (CR) is insufficient.Many antidotes are not approvedin CR, so their obtaining is problematic. The purpose of this study is to examine the real availabilityof antidotes in Czech hospital pharmacies and to assess the influence of hospital size, hospitallocalisation, antidote cost, and the fact of antidote approval in CR on antidote availability. Finally,some proposals for the solution of the situation are mentioned. A structured questionnaire wasconstructed and mailed to 85 hospital pharmacies. A total of 46 hospital pharmacies sent backcompletely answered questionnaires and they were statistically assessed. The questionnaire includeda summary of poisonings and usable antidotes. The recommended quantity of each antidote wasincluded. Availability of antidotes (D) and sufficient availability of antidotes (DD) were calculatedfor each answering hospital pharmacy as a ratio of poisonings for which the antidote was availableor available in a sufficient quantity, to all poisonings mentioned in the questionnaire. The othercalculated parameter was the availability of an individual antidote (d) and the sufficient availabilityof an individual antidote (dd) – they were calculated as a ratio of pharmacies stocking the antidote,or stocking the antidote in a sufficient quantity, to evaluated pharmacies.Availability of 23 differentantidotes for 20 poisonings was assessed. Antidotes for roughly one half of assessed poisonings areavailable (D 55.69±12.42 %) and for about one third of poisonings the antidotes are available ina sufficient quantity (DD – 37.23±14.10 %). The D and DD have been dependent on hospital size (measured as the number of beds). D and DD have not been dependent on the localisation of thehospital (measured as a period of transport time to the hospital of higher type of care), d and ddranged between 0–100%and were dependent on the antidote cost.There were significant differencesbetween d and dd of antidotes approved (R) and unapproved (NR) in CR (d(R) – 70.51±33.26 %,d(NR) – 10.19±9.26 %, p

Key words:
antidote – availability – stock – pharmacy – hospital