New research shows that nurse-led medication monitoring is able to prevent side effects. A study lead by Sue Jordan, a professor at Swansea University in the U.K., analyzed how patients with mental health issues were able to benefit from such monitoring by nurses.

Published in the Nursing Standard, the study included patients being treated at home by mental health crisis teams using Profile, a nurse-led monitoring system. The monitoring was able to detect side effects from mental health medications, such as heart and abdominal problems, as well as unveiling other health problems. Over the period of a month, researchers found that the program was able to report life-threatening problems in two of the 20 patients.

Results of the nurse monitoring also revealed patents required the following:

• Three patients needed to be consulted by a psychiatrist.
• Three needed to be sent to general practitioners.
• One urgently needed an ECG.
• One needed to visits a dentist.
• Four needed their medications discontinued.

"The reason why we want Health Boards and Trusts to adopt medicines monitoring, and what really matters to us, is that that when our Profiles were used, fewer care home residents experienced pain and sedation, and problems with balance, confusion, restlessness, nausea and eating were addressed,” said Jordan. “Our monitoring Profiles also identify early signs of heart problems and allow nurses to work with prescribers to get the best doses of the best medicines for patients in community mental health. Rolling out this monitoring in the NHS would be an obvious benefit to patients."