Available for academic institutional subscription, this Elsevier database (https://www.clinicalpharmacology.com/) is also marketed as a point-of-care tool for commercial medical entities. State pharmacy boards list it as an acceptable required drug reference for pharmacies. Available for more than twenty years, it offers reliable, comprehensive, current content, and is updated continually as new information becomes available. Both pharmaceutical and alternative medications are included. Content is peer reviewed, with links to referenced documents. No print counterpart exists; however, Trissel’s 2 Clinical Pharmaceutics Database and drug product comparisons are listed as references. Included within Clinical Pharmacology are tools to evaluate drug interactions and their severity, IV compatibility, and drug identification/storage information. Also offered are consumer-tested patient handouts, medication guides, contact information for pharmaceutical companies, chemical structures, lists of investigational monographs, pediatric dosing, lab reference values, a condensed list of clinical calculators, breast-feeding and lactation information, and drug class overviews. A phonetic search function is available, but it does not correct all misspellings. Users may conduct a site search or look for alphabetically arranged monographs, drug indications and contraindications, adverse reactions, classification, National Drug Code (NDC), and manufacturers.
A clean, simple interface with a single search box makes this site relatively easy to use; advanced searching is not available. Subject content within drop-down menus is less intuitive and discoverable. Page loading can be slow, and navigation is hindered by a small font and text-heavy pages. Monograph sections are well designated and hyperlinked, containing a “jump to” feature. Of note, references frequently link to the original drug company trials. Uniquely, revision dates for individual monograph sections are available. Printing is accessible for most individual pages, but no e-mail option exists. A help desk offers extended hours and individual help pages. A mobile-enhanced version is also available via a vendor-distributed code.
Overall, this is a useful, reliable resource for general drug information, though not as clinically robust as Micromedex (discussed below), or as useful for research as the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) or Thomson Reuters’s International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (available through EBSCO and ProQuest). Recommended for point-of-care drug information for pharmaceutical professionals and students, and for drug-information-seeking patrons and students with high levels of health literacy.