Medication use as evidence for pharmacotherapeutics curriculum content.

Objective: To analyze the most common active ingredients in ambulatory prescription and nonprescription products to provide evidence for contemporary pharmacotherapeutics curricula development.

Methods: Content analysis was performed to code commonly dispensed prescription ingredients into American Hospital Formulary Service Pharmacologic-Therapeutic categories and commonly sold nonprescription products into self-care categories. This study used data from Drug Topics' 2007 "top 200" lists.

Results: For prescription drugs, when tallying the ingredients assigned to the AHFS categories "Cardiovascular Drugs" and "Central Nervous Systems Agents," more than 50% of the total dispensed ingredients from the brand and generic top 200 lists were represented. For nonprescription products, over 75% of the commonly sold nonprescription products were categorized within 4 of the possible 11 self-care categories.

Conclusions: This analysis provides a method for educators to use when collecting curricula-refining evidence and specific findings for evaluating therapeutics curricula.