A nurse suspects that a patient is using prescription medications provided by a variety of practitioners. What might be the most useful method of screening for this?
1. Ask the patient to list the drugs the patient is taking.
2. Ask if patient is abusing any medications.
3. Request that the patient bring all medications to the next appointment.
4. Call all the patient's providers and request information on medications prescribed for the patient.
Answer: 3
Explanation: Having patients bring in all their drugs (brown-bagging) provides an efficient and fairly reliable method of evaluating polypharmacy. Patients may not remember all the medications they are taking. Patients may not even realize that the use of multiple medications by different providers could create a problem. Calling the patient's providers is an inefficient and often ineffective method of coordinating care.
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