ReviewDrug, healthcare and patient safety2026
Rational Corticosteroid Use: An Evidence-Based Narrative Review of Steroid Stewardship to Enhance Patient Safety Across Healthcare Settings.
Review in Drug, healthcare and patient safety, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Corticosteroids are potent medicines that are commonly used to treat inflammation, autoimmune conditions, and acute illnesses. Overuse or misuse can cause serious side effects like high blood sugar, slow growth, mood swings, infections, and adrenal insufficiency. This narrative review examines the need for structured steroid stewardship programs (SSPs) to optimize patient therapeutic outcomes. We derive the evidence from real-world prescribing studies, pharmacovigilance reports, and stewardship intervention trials published between 2015 and 2025, with emphasis on post-marketing safety data. Worldwide, 5-10% of hospitalized patients get systemic steroids every year. In India, the percentage of patients who get them is between 2% and 34%. Adverse effects occur in nearly 50% of the patients on long-term use. Effective stewardship components include multidisciplinary teams, prescription audits, standardized tapering protocols (10-20% dose reduction every 7-15 days), handheld steroid emergency cards, and educating patients on "sick day rules". The patient-centered outcomes, including quality of life, treatment satisfaction, and adrenal crisis prevention, remain underreported. To ensure long-term safety and sustainability, stronger collaborative initiatives between healthcare providers and policymakers are essential. We propose a five-component stewardship framework with potential safety indicators: (1) steroid emergency cards, (2) prescription audits by pharmacists, (3) standardization of tapering protocols, (4) patient education on sick-day rules, and (5) monitoring of outcomes including adrenal crisis rates and hyperglycemic events. The framework is intended to support safer corticosteroid use and improve medication safety, but its feasibility and effectiveness need to be evaluated prospectively across different healthcare settings.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.