Adverse Effects and Causative Medicines
Recognise a likely adverse effect of treatment or identify the medicine most likely to explain a new clinical presentation.
How to prepare for the PSA
Combine patient-centred prescribing judgement with fast BNF navigation, reliable calculations, complete prescriptions and explicit monitoring and communication.
Core concepts
Concept 1
Official ADR items include identifying the likely adverse effect of a named medicine and identifying the medicine most likely to cause a stated problem.
Exam cue: Build a timeline from medicine start or dose change to the new finding.
Concept 2
Causality depends on timing, known medicine effects, dose change, dechallenge information and competing clinical explanations.
Exam cue: Compare each medicine's known effects with the specific presentation.
Concept 3
Common and clinically important adverse effects of medicines within Foundation Year 1 practice are core knowledge, with precise details checked in the BNF when needed.
Exam cue: Keep an alternative disease cause in mind before attributing every new symptom to treatment.
Risk pitfalls and guardrails
Selecting a memorable rare adverse effect over a much more likely explanation.
Guardrail: Do not let a familiar medicine, reference search or calculator output replace patient-specific safety checks and escalation.
Ignoring timing or a recent dose change.
Guardrail: Do not let a familiar medicine, reference search or calculator output replace patient-specific safety checks and escalation.
Assuming association proves causation without reviewing other medicines and conditions.
Guardrail: Do not let a familiar medicine, reference search or calculator output replace patient-specific safety checks and escalation.
Memory anchors
Timeline
Relate medicine starts and dose changes to onset of the adverse finding.
Known Effect
Check whether the presentation is a recognised and plausible effect of the medicine.
Alternatives
Compare medicine causality with disease and other treatment explanations.
Dose Relation
A dose or exposure change can strengthen or weaken suspected causality.
BNF Check
Use the BNF for precise adverse-effect and frequency information when necessary.
Checkpoint rule
Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.
Knowledge Check (after reading)
Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.
Check-up Questions
A patient develops dry cough two weeks after ramipril, with normal examination. What is the likely cause?
A patient develops ankle oedema after amlodipine, without pulmonary congestion. What is the likely cause?
Answer all questions to submit.
Next step personalized recommendations
Continue learning
Move forward only after this module is stable.
What is Pass Harbor?
Completely free exam prep for 247 UK exams.
- Practice questions
- Flashcards
- Study guides
- Mock exams
- No registration
- No paywall
- Start instantly
“No more expensive exam prep. Quality study tools should be accessible to everyone.”