Publication

Prescription Drug Information Project

Consumers and medical practitioners face increasingly complex choices about the prescription drugs they use and prescribe. Direct-to-consumer advertising, changes in prescription drug benefits, the rising cost of prescription drugs, and discount programs available for Medicare recipients are causing significant confusion among consumers and clinicians.

In this shifting environment, purchasers of prescription drugs need to be well-informed, and prescribers need decision-support tools to ensure that prescriptions are written with an understanding of the evidence on available treatments — including pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions.

In 2006, the University of California (UC) at Davis and the California HealthCare Foundation collaborated to launch the Prescription Drug Information Project (PDIP). PDIP aims to provide evidence-based, easily accessible information on effectiveness, side effects, and costs to help clinicians and patients select the best drug or treatment at the best price.

Project Outcomes

The UC team performed scientific reviews of the treatment options for common health conditions based on evidence gathered by UC pharmacists and physicians and on publicly available evidence reports prepared by the Drug Evaluation Review Project (DERP), which is run by the Center for Evidence-Based Policy at Oregon Health and Science University. Summary conclusions were vetted by a scientific review panel consisting of doctors and pharmacists from the University of California and by nationally recognized experts in the condition-specific areas.

These summaries can be used on their own or can be used as the basis for others to develop their own materials specifically tailored to, and appropriate for, their individual constituencies. There are two documents for each condition available under Document Downloads:

1. The short Scientific Reference Guide describes the condition, discusses non-prescription interventions, and provides prescription drug intraclass and interclass comparisons for the busy clinician.
2. The longer Treatment Options Report defines the condition, its epidemiology, risk factors, pathophysiology, and diagnosis, and then goes on to discuss non-prescription and alternative interventions as well as drug treatment options and drug comparisons in greater detail.

In addition, the full drug class reviews, which include the key questions addressed, inclusion criteria, methods, results and synthesis, evidence tables, figures, and appendices, are available for download from the Drug Effectiveness Review Project through the link below.

Note: The Osteoarthritis Scientific Reference Guide was updated in February 2005 due to the removal of Vioxx (rofecoxib), a COX-2 inhibitor, from the market and because of ongoing concerns about the relationship between COX-2 inhibitors (celecoxib and valdecoxib) and cardiovascular disease.