ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE To establish a database of rational drug use for children in our hospital， and to provide reference for ensuring the safety of drug use in children. METHODS The construction and filling of the knowledge base of rational drug use for children were performed by establishing the basic structure of the knowledge base， formulating reference standards for the quality level of pediatric medication evidence， and refining evidence-based evidence of pediatric medication. The rule base of rational drug use for children was designed and built from four aspects： preliminary determination rules for patient information， basic drug information rules， prescription suitability review rules， result labeling and post-processing rules. The database was embedded into prescription review system of our hospital and was applied online to test its effectiveness. RESULTS A set of database containing 672 commonly used pediatric medicines and more than 15 000 rules for rational drug use for children was initially constructed. The average interception rate of unreasonable medical orders for hospitalized children after database application（from December 2021 to May 2022）was 2.03%， and was higher than 0.80% before database application（from June 2021 to November 2021）（χ 2＝5 784.389， P＜0.001）； after post-sampling and prescription review， the average qualified rate of medication orders in discharged medical records for children after the application of the database was 99.10%， and was higher than 94.58% before the application of the database （χ 2＝301.237， P＜0.001）. CONCLUSIONS Self-constructed evidence-based rational drug use database for children is close to the actual clinical needs of pediatrics in medical institutions， which can effectively reduce clinical irrational drug use behaviors in pediatrics， improve the pass rate of prescriptions， and ensure the safety of children’s drug use.