Analysis of Data on Adverse Drug Events Reported to the Food and Drugs Administration of the United States of America

Abstract

Background : The Spontaneous Reporting System (SRS) of the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) of the United States of America (US), known as the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), is a mechanism for collecting information on safety concerns associated with the use of drugs for redress, as they are used on large scale. The data which is the subject of this paper came from the FAERS database. This paper reports on the analysis of data covering 2013 to 2018 period, but compares the observed trends in the variables during this period with that of the 2007 to 2012 period to ascertain whether the trends change over time; as this paper is, in a sense, a sequel to an earlier one with a similar title as this but covering the period 2007 to 2012. Objectives: The objectives of the study reported in this paper were to : i) explore the trends in the variables involved with the adverse events problem in the 2013 to 2018 period and compare these trends with that found in the study covering the 2007 to 2012 period ; ii) determine whether or not the level of missing variable values in the 2013 to 2018 period is lower than, the same or higher than it was in the 2007 to 2012 period ; iii) find out how the first twenty principal suspect drugs most cited to be involved in adverse events occurring during drug use in the 2013 to 2018 period compare with that of the 2007 to 2 012 period. Methods: The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) makes extracts from the FAERS database freely available to the public on quarterly basis. Fourteen (14) out of over fifty (50) variables contained in these extracts were reckoned to be connected with the objectives of the study and were examined using the tools of frequencies, proportions and averages, on account of the nature of the data. Results: For the period 2013 to 2018, adverse events reports submitted to the FDA (US) more than doubled (2.1 times), accounting for an annual average growth rate of 15.8 %, which is considerably lower than the annual average growth rate of 22.1% for the 2007 to 2012 period. However, the reported number of cases for 2015 was 53.8% more than that of 2014. Consistent with the results for 2007 to 2012 period, the 2013 to 2018 period saw Female subjects accounting for over 60% of the annual and the overall number of reports. Overall, non-health professionals appear to have a slight edge over health professionals in reporting adverse drug events in the 2013 to 2018 period, with an indication that reports from non-health professionals are on the decline and that from health professionals is on the rise. Non-health professionals and health professionals were almost equally likely to report adverse events in the 2007 to 2012 period. Also, the findings for the 2013 to 2018 period suggest that the older one gets the more vulnerable one becomes to adverse events associated with drug use, which is consistent with the findings for the 2007 to 2012 period. Conclusion: The danger s that come with the use of drugs is an evolving one and therefore there is the need to examine SRS data from time to time so that emerging drug safety concerns can be dealt with timeously.