Mette Heringa

Mette Heringa is a PhD-student at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She studied pharmacy and she is interested in medication safety, clinical decision support systems, medical decision making and drug-drug interactions.

Mette is conducting her PhD research at the SIR Institute for Pharmacy Practice and Policy, in collaboration with the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Pharmacology, Utrecht University. The research focuses on clinical risk management in community pharmacy.

Drug-related problems cause considerable health damage and financial damage. Drug-drug interactions are among the most important drug-related problems. For example: some anti-epileptic drugs can interfere with the effectiveness of contraceptives. In decisions about managing this kind of problems, patient involvement is limited. With a conjoint analysis (ACA), Mette will determine which management options for drug-drug interactions are preferred by patients, and how preferences vary between patients. Moreover, she wants to establish whether patients’ preferences are different from physicians’ and pharmacists’ preferences – who are the main current decision makers.

Results of this research can improve both the development process of the management recommendations for drug-related problems and the application of these recommendations in daily practice. This will hopefully be a step towards a more patient centered way of medical and pharmaceutical decision making, which will contribute to patient empowerment.