Reflect on the types of drugs used to treat pediatric patients with mood disorders.
Reflect on situations in which children should be prescribed drugs for off-label use.
Think about strategies to make the off-label use and dosage of drugs safer for children from infancy to adolescence. Consider specific off-label drugs that you think require extra care and attention when used in pediatrics.
Assignment
Write a 1-page narrative in APA format that addresses the following:
Explain the circumstances under which children should be prescribed drugs for off-label use. Be specific and provide examples.
Describe strategies to make the off-label use and dosage of drugs safer for children from infancy to adolescence. Include descriptions and names of off-label drugs that require extra care and attention when used in pediatrics.
Pharmacology
Institutional Affiliations
Pharmacology
The Code of Ethics for nurses defines best practices that nurses must adhere to in order to ensure patients’ safety. One of the ways to enhance patient safety is to ensure safe medication use for patients across the lifespan. While the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved medications for use in adults, some of these drugs are often used off-label in children to treat diseases similar to those that are commonly diagnosed in adults (Rosenthal & Burchum, 2018). The purpose of this assignment is to describe situations under which certain medications can be used off-label in children and adolescents.
Nurses should understand the circumstances under which children should be prescribed drugs for off-label use. A doctor can prescribe a medication off-label to a child when the drug has been approved by the FDA for safe use in adults to treat a particular disease but dosage guidelines for the same medication in pediatrics are lacking (Rosenthal & Burchum, 2018). Another instance when a drug can be prescribed off-label in children is when the only drug available at the time of treatment is that which has been approved for use in adults to treat a similar condition. For example, there are currently no FDA-approved drugs for use in children aged 10 years and below with bipolar disorder (Panther et al., 2017). As such, a healthcare provider caring for a pediatric patient aged 10 years and below would have no choice but to prescribe adult medications off-label to the patient.
Healthcare providers must ensure that medications that are prescribed off-label are safe for children and adolescents. The best strategies to employ to maximize safe drug use include using a fraction of the dosage recommended for adults and adjusting the frequency of drug administration (Rosenthal & Burchum, 2018). These strategies will prevent the treated children from developing adverse events. Although off-label drug use is acceptable in some instances, some of the drugs that require extra care when used off-label in children are tetracyclines and sulfonamides (Meyers et al., 2020). These drugs can cause liver damage when doses meant for adults are used in children.
References
Meyers, R. S., Thackray, J., Matson, K. L., McPherson, C., Lubsch, L., Hellinga, R. C., & Hoff, D. S. (2020). Key potentially inappropriate drugs in pediatrics: The KIDs list. The Journal of Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics: JPPT: The Official Journal of PPAG, 25(3), 175–191. https://doi.org/10.5863/1551-6776-25.3.175
Panther, S. G., Knotts, A. M., Odom-Maryon, T., Daratha, K., Woo, T., & Klein, T. A. (2017). Off-label prescribing trends for ADHD medications in very young children. The Journal of Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 22(6), 423–429. doi:10.5863/1551-6776-22.6.423
Rosenthal, L. D., & Burchum, J. R. (2018). Lehne’s pharmacotherapeutics for advanced practice providers. St. Louis, MO: Elsevier. Chapter 8, “Drug Therapy in Pediatric Patients” (pp. 65—67)