Medication Reconciliation in Outpatient Psychiatry: An Indicator of Communication With Primary Care? A Quantitative Descriptive Study.
Gwladys Acoulon, Camille Vincent, Sixtine Brenek and 3 others
PMID 41652314WHAT IT FOUND
In this outpatient psychiatry setting, 84.8% of the 33 patients with data showed at least one medication discrepancy between their psychiatrist and GP records.
This highlights a major communication gap, but the small sample and lack of patient interviews limit certainty.
Key findings
0184.8% of the analysed sample had at least one discrepancy between medications known to the psychiatric centre and those known to the GP.
0218.8% of the total included sample did not have an attending GP identified in the psychiatric centre's records.
03Pharmacy data was unusable for 82.1% of the included files because no regular pharmacy was identified in the records.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only 33 of 112 patients (29.5%) could be analysed due to inability to contact GPs or missing contact information. Patients were not interviewed, so intentional changes by prescribers could not be distinguished from errors, potentially overestimating the rate of clinically significant discrepancies. The study was monocentric and exploratory, limiting generalisability. Pharmacy data was unavailable for most participants, removing a key verification source.
Declared interests
The authors declare no external funding and no conflicts of interest that influenced the study design, data collection, analysis, or interpretation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the 84.8% discrepancy rate as a measure of actual medication errors or patient harm. The study could not distinguish between intentional prescription changes by doctors and unintentional communication failures, and the sample was highly selected (only 29.5% of included patients had analysable data).