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Nurses give drugs to patients every day. We have a professional responsibility to ensure comprehensive and current knowledge of the actions of these drugs.
An understanding of the underlying principles of drug action - pharmacodynamics - allows nurses to assess the impact of drug therapy on patients and their health problems, and to provide targeted information to clients about their therapy.
INTRODUCTION
The study of drugs - pharmacology - encompasses two key areas: pharmacodynamics, or the effect of a drug on the body; and pharmacokinetics - the way the body processes a drug.
An understanding of both these aspects of drug therapy provides the rationales for medication regimes and the use of individual drugs to treat specifi c disease processes.
The role of nursing in the use of medications is mandated by legislation and professional standards. While most nurses are unable to prescribe drug therapy, we are held to a high standard of practice in the safe administration, evaluation and education of patients, in relation to prescribed regimes. As health professionals, we may also be approached for advice about alternative and over-the-counter medications.
An understanding of the ways drugs exert their effects in the body allows us to:
* Look for and evaluate the effects of drugs (both desired and adverse) on an individual patient.
* Identify the usefulness of a drug or drug regime in the treatment of a patient's specifi c health conditions and consult with prescribers about this.
* Evaluate the appearance of new or unexpected signs and symptoms in relation to drug activity.
* Educate patients, at an appropriate level, about actions and adverse reactions of drugs and the consequences of not taking their drugs as prescribed.
* Ensure that prescribed drugs are safe, tolerable and simple for the individual to use.
DEFINITION OF A DRUG
A drug is any chemical introduced to the body that affects physiological function. This description includes prescribed, over-the-counter, recreational or illicit drugs, and herbal, traditional and complementary, or alternative, remedies.
Drugs act by altering existing cellular activities; they do not create new functions or metabolic pathways in the body. There is a distinction between a drug's mechanism of action (how it interacts at a molecular level) and its effect - the physiological outcome of...