Answered By: Cindy Schmidt
Last Updated: Sep 24, 2021     Views: 493

Drug interactions occur when one drug disrupts the absorption, metabolism, action or excretion of the other drug or when the pharmacologic effects of one drug increase or decrease the pharmacologic effects or side effects of the other drug.  

The McGoogan Library licenses three, electronic drug information resources that can produce custom, drug interaction reports.  These are:

1.  LexiComp

Lexi-comp's drug interaction tool reports drug-drug interactions only.  After entering and adding the drugs of interest to your "interactions" search, you will be presented with the "interaction analysis" results.  Be sure to click on the "interaction monograph" tab or interaction links if you want to see a description of the interactions listed in the "interaction analysis"

 

2.  Clinical Pharmacology

 

The Clinical Pharmacology user to choose consumer- or professional-level reports. Depending on user selections, the following may be included in reports:

  • Drug-drug interactions
  • Drug-food interactions
  • Drug-enteral feedings interactions
  • Drug-grapefruit juice interactions
  • Drug-ethanol interactions
  • Drug-caffeine interactions
  • Drug-tobacco interactions
  • Therapeutic duplication

3.  UpToDate

The interaction tool reports drug-drug interactions only

Whenever attempting to answer a drug information question it is best to consult two or more, high quality resources.  Please, do remember this when viewing drug interaction reports.  For a given group of drugs, the three tools listed above will not always produce reports containing the same interactions.

The Library owns a wide variety of printed books that focus minor or major attention on drug interactions.  If you would like to see a list of such books perform a keyword search of the library's catalog for:

s:"drug interactions" OR t:"drug interactions"

Students sometimes confuse drug interactions with parenteral drug incompatibility or vice versa.  For more information on IV drug compatibility or incompatibility click here.

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