Medication Use as Evidence for Pharmacotherapeutics Curriculum Content

To analyze the most common active ingredients in ambulatory prescription and nonprescription products to provide evidence for contemporary pharmacotherapeutics curricula development.Content analysis was performed to code commonly dispensed prescription ingredients into American Hospital Formulary Service Pharmacologic-Therapeutic categories and commonly sold nonprescription products into self-care categories. This study used data from Drug Topics' 2007 "top 200" lists.For prescription drugs, when tallying the ingredients assigned to the AHFS categories "Cardiovascular Drugs" and "Central Nervous Systems Agents," more than 50% of the total dispensed ingredients from the brand and generic top 200 lists were represented. For nonprescription products, over 75% of the commonly sold nonprescription products were categorized within 4 of the possible 11 self-care categories.This analysis provides a method for educators to use when collecting curricula-refining evidence and specific findings for evaluating therapeutics curricula.