The Bloomsbury Colleges Phd Studentship Relationship between medication error and patient harm due to adverse drug effects

The Bloomsbury Colleges are a consortium of six University of London colleges comprising Birkbeck, Institute of Education, Royal Veterinary College, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, School of Oriental and African Studies and The School of Pharmacy.

Applications are invited for a three-year PhD studentship, to start October 2007. The studentship will cover course fees (at the usual level for UK and EU studentships) and a student stipend.

The studentship is to be jointly supervised by staff at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and The School of Pharmacy.

Investigator: Dr Mariam Molokhia (LSHTM) Collaborator: Prof Nick Barber (SoP)

Background:
Several primary care databases have been established in the United Kingdom that include longitudinal records of morbidity and drug prescription data on several million people with up to 20 years follow-up, including The Health Information Network (THIN-GPRD equivalent), and MediPlus. {Majeed, 2004 5557 /id} Quality of data recording by GPs has been encouraged by the GP contract introduced in 2004 which includes incentives for coding all consultations, treatments and diagnoses by READ codes. Ascertainment of drug exposure (except for over-the-counter preparations) and morbidity can be almost complete. It is possible to use these databases to detect medication errors and patterns of non-compliance in patients, and
associated patient morbidity such as increase in adverse drug reactions (ADRs). This project aims to establish the prevalence and type of medication errors in an adult UK population using primary care data and two classes of drug (i) statins (ii) fluoroquinolones, and assess risk arising from medication error in relation to patient morbidity. Recent relevant publications are given below:

1. Dean FB, Vincent C, Schachter M, Barber N.
   The incidence of prescribing errors in hospital inpatients: an overview of the research methods. Drug Saf 2005;28(10):891-900.
2. Ghaleb MA, Barber N, Franklin BD, Yeung VW, Khaki ZF, Wong IC.
   Systematic review of medication errors in pediatric patients. Ann Pharmacother 2006 October;40(10):1766-76.

Lead supervisor: Dr Mariam Molokhia (LSHTM)
E-mail: mariam.molokhia@lshtm.ac.uk
Profile: http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/ncdeu/staff/mmolokhia.html

Co-supervisor: Professor John Whittaker (LSHTM)
E-mail: john.whittaker@lshtm.ac.uk
Profile: http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/ncdeu/staff/jwhittaker.html

Co-supervisor: Professor Nick Barber (SOP)
E-mail: n.barber@pharmacy.ac.uk
Profile: http://www.pharmacy.ac.uk/nick_barber.html

This project would suit a quantitative epidemiologist or statistician who should be familiar with statistical analyses of large datasets. If you would like to discuss the project in further detail please contact: mariam.molokhia@lshtm.ac.uk

Further details, including instructions on how to apply, are available at:
www.lshtm.ac.uk/prospectus/howto/bloomsburyphdstudentships.html or telephone +44 (0)20 7299 4646 for a copy of the application pack.

The application deadline has been extended to 31st May 2007.