Personal Injury Blog

Research Finds Widespread Overmedication of Hospitalized Children

September 12th, 2011
Children are often overmedicated

Children are at a high risk of overmedication.

Children who have been hospitalized are given too many medications, even though Los Angeles personal injury lawyers have safety concerns about many drugs for children.  That information comes from an analysis of more than 580,000 pediatric patients from around the country and it shows the widespread overmedication of hospitalized children.

The number of medications that children receive while in the hospital differs depending on the age of the child, the period of hospitalization as well as the type of hospital.  Children over one year of age were much more likely to receive multiple medications than those below one year.  Some children who had been in the hospital for at least a week received as many as thirty-five different drugs.  Children who suffered from rare illnesses were much likely to receive multiple medications.  Also, children admitted into children’s hospitals were medicated much more aggressively than those in general hospitals.  Children in general hospitals received far lower medications than those in children’s hospitals.

Overmedication of hospitalized children is of concern to Los Angeles product liability attorneys, because there’s so much that we don’t know about the safety of so many of these drugs.  In recent years, there have been a number of incidents involving illnesses and conditions that developed after children were given certain medications.  For instance, certain antidepressants have been found to cause a number of side effects in children, including sudden weight gain.

Children may not only be at risk of side effects from the use of medications, but also from drug interactions.  When children are given multiple medications in this manner, there is definitely a risk of several drugs interacting with each other.  Additionally, pharmaceutical drugs become even more dangerous when they are used for off- label purposes.  A drug can be used for purposes that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.  A physician can prescribe these drugs for off-label uses, but companies cannot push or promote the use of these drugs for purposes that are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The use of medications for off-label purposes has substantially increased the risks of drug interactions and side effects.  When drugs have not been approved for a particular purpose by the federal agency, there is little that doctors know about the side effects of the drug or the way that it interacts with other drugs.  These people may be at a high risk of serious injuries or illnesses when they take these drugs, especially when they combine these drugs with others.

In fact, according to the researchers, the use of multiple medications is associated with an increased likelihood of adverse drug reactions in hospitals.  The effect of drug side effects may be especially acute in children because of their still growing bodies and delicate health.

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