Pediamecum is a tool created by and for pediatricians, which is also open to the consultation of other professionals, as well as parents and caregivers. He was born because of the need to develop in Spain a pediatric area within the 'vademecum'In this way, the use of drugs in children can be standardized.
I think that it is always the pediatrician who must prescribe the medications to be administered and their doses, limiting the parents to use drugs such as analgesics or anti-thermal drugs in specific situations, and always based on experience, recommendations and common sense. But hasn't it happened to you that you want to know more about the interactions or side effects of the prescription drug? Has it never happened that wishing to read the prospectus, you had lost it? Well, this should be the usefulness of Pediamecum for parents: get more information, which can help us understand the mechanisms of a medicine, or to have a conversation with our children's doctor, about their therapeutic decision.
In addition to facilitating daily care for pediatric patients, the Pediamécum, 'aims to become a reference for the use of specific drugs and build a network of educational activities around the rational use of drugs in children'
Because many times that 'rationality' fails, and also the belief that we can modify the pattern established by the pediatrician on our own. The information that Pediamecum can give us it gives us good sense, and also decision power, but these should be accompanied by a professional consultation, because medications are not a game.
At present, the Pediamécum includes more than 500 active ingredients tokens, structured according to the classification of the International Drug Association, which identifies each therapeutic area with a letter.
Until now, pediatric specialists had no choice but to be guided by the conventional vademecum, - a catalog of drugs designed for application in the adult population -, and to adapt the doses of the products to the profile of the children. Therefore We have to congratulate the Spanish Association of Pediatrics for this tool that will be useful to all health professionals who are in contact with children and adolescents.
Thanks to this tool. therapeutic misuse can be avoided due to ignorance of the appropriate dose and numerous adverse reactions to medications that currently occur due to lack of information
