Drug and poison information centres: An emergent need for health care professionals in Pakistan

Objective: to determine the need of drug and poison information centres in public and private hospitals of karachi. methods: the cross-sectional study was conducted at 3 public and 3 private tertiary care hospitals of karachi,from july 2013 to april 2014,using a self-administered,multi-item questionnaire. non-probability convenient sampling was used to select the participants. spss 18 was used to analyse data. results: of the 307 physicians,282(92%) highlighted the need for a 24/7 drug and poison information centre and 206(67%) suggested opening a drug information centre at the hospital. besides,215(70%) respondents said they took at least 15 minutes for searching information about the drug while managing a case. regarding the poisoning case management,160(52%) physicians complained about the unavailability of medicines in hospitals. conclusion: provision of 24 /7 drug information centres with specialised staff are necessary to reduce treatment delays and to ensure provision of quality healthcare. © 2016,pakistan medical association. all rights reserved.