Drug related problems in the neonatal intensive care unit: incidence, characterization and clinical relevance.

Background: Any event involving drug therapy that may interfere in a patient's desired clinical outcome is called a drug related problem (DRP). DRP are very common in intensive therapy, however, little is known about DRP in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The purpose of this study was to determine the incidence of DRPs in NICU patients and to characterize DRPs according to type, cause and corresponding pharmaceutical conducts.