Psych Drugs and Medications App Simple But Flawed

The Psych Drugs and Medications app is a simple, straightforward medical app that is as promised -- a drug reference app for psychiatric medications -- but reliability is an issue.

A good point-of-care drug reference app is a "must have" for every clinician. We recently updated our review of the Epocrates app, one great resource. There are also a growing body of drug reference apps for patients, such as Iodine, which provides some curated patient-friendly information on medications (though its crowd-sourced content has some issues).

The latter is what the Psych Drugs and Medications app aims to be: a plain-language reference for patients.

Drug information is presented in patient language with medications listed alphabetically by brand name. Doses and drug class are also included on the home screen.

Each drug listing in the Psych Drugs and Medications app includes the brand and generic drug names, drug class, indications, dosage forms, maximum daily dosage, half-life, and a list of adverse effects. It's not clear how this specific information was chosen for inclusion.

Some entries seem incomplete. For example, carbamazepine as Equetro is indicated for bipolar disorder; however, it's a known antiepileptic drug with a whole host of drug interactions, adverse effects, and warnings associated with its use that aren't mentioned by the app. There are no references or sources listed either, so there's no way to tell from where the information was derived.

Additionally, the information in Psych Drugs and Medications is not entirely accurate in some cases. The listing for Butisol includes a 50-mg dose. Butisol is not available in the U.S. as a 50-mg dose and doesn't appear to ever have been, based on information found in the FDA website. Also concerning is that its entry hasn't been updated in about 2 years.

Likes:

• Simple, straightforward information

Dislikes:

• No sources or credible references for information presented
• Information given may be inaccurate
• Important information regarding warnings and adverse effects is missing
• Not updated frequently
• Ads

Overall:

While this streamlined approach to a complicated group of drugs seems like a good idea, unfortunately, the app does not provide comprehensive information or any sense of references used. Information is incomplete, inaccurate, and outdated. Patients would be better served using something like Drugs.com or WebMD for drug information.

Read the full review of Psych Drugs and Medications on iMedicalApps. You also can check the app out on iTunes and Google Play.

This post appeared on iMedicalApps.com.

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Psych Drugs and Medications App Simple But Flawed