Besides being helpful and time consuming that two or more drugs are given at one time, it may also be more beneficial and medically better to give a dose of medication that contains multiple drugs. This is known as synergism in the health care world. However, the nurse should be careful because some drugs that are taken together could be harmful to the patient.
It seems that according to synergism that the total effect of the drugs combined and taken together is more beneficial than taking each drug separately. That is why they have multi-dose vials created. This allows a pharmacist to put these drugs together and place them in the same bottle for the patient. Then the patient can take the drugs at the same time.
Synergism.-rationale: synergism, or a synergistic effect, occurs when two drugs with the same qualitative effects produce, when given together, a response greater than either drug produces when given alone. tolerance is a persons decreased response or decreased sensitivity to a drug. antagonism occurs when the combined response to two drugs given together is less than the response either drug produces when given alone. hyporeactivity is a less-than-usual response to a normal drug dose.client needs category: physiological integrityclient needs subcategory: pharmacological and parenteral therapiescognitive level: applicationreference: aschenbrenner, d.s., and venable, s.j. drug therapy in nursing, 2nd ed. philadelphia: lippincott williams & wilkins, 2006, p. 59.
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