Author Question: The nurse is conducting medication education about the difference between potency and efficacy to a ... (Read 61 times)

Charlie · **on:** Jul 23, 2018

The nurse is conducting medication education about the difference between potency and efficacy to a group of patients. The nurse correctly determines that learning has occurred when the patients makes which response?

1. The best drug for us is the one with the highest potency.
2. The best drug for us is the one with the greatest efficacy.
3. Drugs with the greatest efficacy will produce the least side effects.
4. Low potency drugs have efficacy and do not produce side effects.

Question 2

The patient has had hypertension for many years. The physician orders an antihypertensive drug that has just come on the market. The nurse teaches the patient that this drug works more effectively than his prior drug, and has fewer side effects.

The patient asks how this can be. What is the best response by the nurse?
1. Newer drugs are altered to affect your cells' receptors in a different way.
2. Receptors tend to burn-out,' so newer drugs are required.
3. Research into receptors helps fine-tune' drugs to be more effective.
4. Changing the response of the drug to protein receptor-complexes produces fewer side effects.
5. It is a process of trial and error with receptors until the new drug proves effective.

gcook · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 23, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Correct Answer: 2
Rationale: Efficacy means the magnitude of maximal response that can be produced from a particular drug. Potency refers to the dose of the drug; high-potency drugs do not necessarily provide the best response in the patient. Efficacious drugs and low-potency drugs do produce side effects.

Answer to Question 2

Correct Answer: 1,3
Rationale: Receptor research results in the development of new medications that activate very specific receptors to produce a greater therapeutic response as well as fewer side effects. Research into receptors has resulted in the fine-tuning of medications that are more effective with fewer side effects. Research is not a process of trial and error with receptors. Receptors do not burn-out. There is no such thing as a protein receptor-complex.