Author Question: A patient asks a nurse why drugs that have been approved by the FDA still have unknown side effects. ... (Read 107 times)

armygirl · **on:** Jul 23, 2018

A patient asks a nurse why drugs that have been approved by the FDA still have unknown side effects. The nurse tell the patient that:

a. testing for all side effects of a medication would be prohibitively expensive.
b. patients in drug trials often are biased by their preconceptions of a drug's benefits.
c. researchers tend to conduct studies that will prove the benefits of their new drugs.
d. subjects in drug trials do not always represent the full spectrum of possible patients.

Question 2

A patient tells the nurse that the oral drug that has been prescribed has caused a lot of stomach discomfort in the past. What will the nurse ask the prescriber?

a. Whether a sublingual form of the medication can be given
b. Whether the medication can be given by a parenteral route instead
c. To order an enteric-coated form of the drug
d. Whether the patient can receive a sustained-release preparation of the drug

shoemake · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 23, 2018

Answer to Question 1

ANS: D
All drug trials are limited by a relatively small group of subjects who may not have all the characteristics of people who will be using the drug; therefore, some side effects go undetected until the drug is in use. Although drug trials are very expensive, this is only an indirect reason they do not detect all side effects before approval. In theory, well-designed drug trials, using blinded studies, minimize or eliminate subject bias. Designing studies to prove desired results is unethical.

Answer to Question 2

ANS: C
Enteric-coated drugs are preparations that have been coated with a material that dissolves in the intestines, not the stomach. This coating is used either to protect the drug from stomach acid and pepsin or to protect the stomach from a drug that can cause gastric upset. Sublingual forms often are used for drugs that undergo rapid inactivation during the first pass through the hepatic circulation so that the drug can be absorbed directly into the systemic circulation. Parenteral routes are more costly and less safe than oral administration and should not be used unless necessary. A sustained-release preparation is used to release the drug into the body over a specific period to reduce the number of daily doses required to sustain therapeutic drug levels.