A.Landschaft (1,2), A. Kimia (3,4)

1. Information Services Department, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, USA MA 02115;

2. Copeia GmbH, Bergisch Gladbach , Germany D 51469;

3. Division of Emergency Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, USA, MA 02115;

4. Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA MA 02115

Introduction: Accurate recognition of medical abbreviations and acronyms is essential for patient safety. Studies have shown that abbreviations and acronyms may lead to medically dangerous misinterpretation. In fact, as part of hospital accreditation the Joint Commission surveyors are screening health records to assure medication names appear in long from. Open access repositories of medical terms have been instrumental in reducing the use of abbreviations that may lead to clinical errors.

Aims: Show the breadth of risk that may be associated with three cannabinoid specific abbreviated medical terms.

Methods: We chose the common terms ‘CBD’,‘THC’ and ‘CBG’ to show possible medication names and other abbreviations sharing the same acronyms. Using the python programming language, we have searched open access databases including Meta inventory, a database of 104,057 medical abbreviations and DrugBank 1 a database of 14,752 drugs, for the cannabis related terms identified previously. Similarly, we performed cross mapping of medication names that have interactions with cannabinoid.

Results: The three acronyms and related long forms are shown in table 1 below. Consequently, we identified in Drugbank 1 1784 names of medications that have interactions with cannabis and cannabinoids, out of which 904 had at least one known abbreviation or acronym. The mean number of long forms for each of those abbreviations is 11.72 with 95% CI [10.72, 12.72]. The known abbreviations and acronyms for three medications that may have interactions with cannabis and cannabinoids are shown in table 2 below.

Conclusions: Many medications and a hazardous chemical contain the abbreviations CBD, THC and CBG. Adding the long form in parentheses and clearly indicating whether or not the term refers to a cannabinoid, may prevent lay people from accidentally accessing chemicals containing these acronyms in hope for lightheadedness or pain relief. As cannabis related medications and other cannabinoids (as CBC, CBN) become more main stream, this practice will be enforced down the line and early adaptation may be beneficial. Furthermore, when assessing possible drug interactions for patients treated with cannabinoids it is essential to ensure that abbreviations and acronyms are understood the same way by all readers of the medical documentation.

Keywords: cannabinoids, abbreviations, patient safety , medical informatics, quality assurance.

This abstract is listed in the journal: «Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids» (Karger Publishers, Basel, Switzerland) is the official journal of SSCM Swiss Society of Cannabis in Medicin and the SSCM-IACM IACM - International Association for Cannabinoid Medicines Cannabinoid Conference 2022. Cannabis Medicinalis