Key stakeholders and responsibilities in QUM MCQs With Answer

Introduction: Key stakeholders and responsibilities in Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) are central to ensuring safe, effective and equitable pharmacotherapy. This blog provides M.Pharm students with a concise, practical overview of who the main stakeholders are—prescribers, pharmacists, nurses, patients, regulators, procurement officers, industry, insurers and multidisciplinary committees—and what specific responsibilities each holds across prescribing, procurement, monitoring, pharmacovigilance, education and policy. Emphasis is placed on clear role delineation, collaborative practice, and mechanisms such as formularies, therapeutic drug monitoring and antibiotic stewardship that support rational medicine use. These MCQs reinforce critical concepts required for clinical, regulatory and managerial roles in QUM.

Q1. Which of the following best describes the primary responsibility of a prescriber under Quality Use of Medicines (QUM)?

• Select appropriate medicine, dose, route and duration based on evidence and patient’s clinical status
• Ensure laboratory testing for all prescriptions regardless of indication
• Only prescribe medicines from the national essential medicines list without exceptions
• Manage hospital procurement tenders for medicines

Correct Answer: Select appropriate medicine, dose, route and duration based on evidence and patient’s clinical status

Q2. In a hospital setting, which responsibility is most characteristic of the clinical pharmacist in promoting QUM?

• Conducting surgery-related procedures
• Medication reconciliation, dose adjustment and patient counselling to optimize therapy
• Deciding hospital staffing levels
• Issuing regulatory marketing approvals for new drugs

Correct Answer: Medication reconciliation, dose adjustment and patient counselling to optimize therapy

Q3. What is the key role of national regulatory authorities in supporting QUM?

• Direct patient counselling in community pharmacies
• Ensuring safety, efficacy, quality of medicines through licensing, inspections and post-marketing surveillance
• Distributing medicines free of charge to all citizens
• Setting local hospital formularies

Correct Answer: Ensuring safety, efficacy, quality of medicines through licensing, inspections and post-marketing surveillance

Q4. Which function best describes a Hospital Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T) Committee?

• Conducting clinical trials for every new medicine introduced
• Developing, managing and updating the institutional formulary and therapeutic guidelines
• Providing direct home care nursing services
• Manufacturing generic medicines for the hospital

Correct Answer: Developing, managing and updating the institutional formulary and therapeutic guidelines

Q5. What is the primary responsibility of a pharmacovigilance centre in the QUM framework?

• Manufacturing vaccines
• Collecting, analysing and communicating adverse drug reaction (ADR) reports to improve safety
• Setting pharmacy retail prices nationally
• Managing hospital bed allocations

Correct Answer: Collecting, analysing and communicating adverse drug reaction (ADR) reports to improve safety

Q6. Which responsibility most accurately fits procurement officers involved in QUM?

• Prescribing high-cost biologics to patients
• Ensuring timely, quality-assured procurement, proper storage and preventing stockouts through effective supply chain management
• Conducting bedside medication administration
• Approving marketing authorization dossiers

Correct Answer: Ensuring timely, quality-assured procurement, proper storage and preventing stockouts through effective supply chain management

Q7. What is a primary responsibility of bedside nurses in medication use within QUM?

• Setting national reimbursement policies
• Administering medicines as prescribed, monitoring patient response and reporting medication errors
• Manufacturing sterile products
• Developing national treatment guidelines

Correct Answer: Administering medicines as prescribed, monitoring patient response and reporting medication errors

Q8. Which role should the pharmaceutical industry primarily play to support QUM?

• Influence prescribers to use only branded products through incentives
• Provide accurate, evidence-based information, ensure product quality and support post-marketing safety monitoring
• Determine clinical diagnoses for patients
• Operate national pharmacovigilance databases independently of regulators

Correct Answer: Provide accurate, evidence-based information, ensure product quality and support post-marketing safety monitoring

Q9. How can health insurers contribute to QUM?

• Refuse coverage for all generic medicines
• Promote cost-effective and evidence-based prescribing through reimbursement policies and formularies
• Replace the role of clinical pharmacists in hospitals
• Approve medicines for marketing authorization

Correct Answer: Promote cost-effective and evidence-based prescribing through reimbursement policies and formularies

Q10. An effective antibiotic stewardship team typically includes which of the following multidisciplinary members?

• Only community pharmacists and patients
• Infectious disease physician, clinical microbiologist, pharmacist and infection control nurse
• Only representatives from pharmaceutical sales
• Hospital catering staff and security personnel

Correct Answer: Infectious disease physician, clinical microbiologist, pharmacist and infection control nurse

Q11. What is the central duty of a Medication Safety Officer in a healthcare organization?

• Manage hospital cafeteria services
• Lead medication error reporting, root-cause analysis and system-based improvements to reduce harm
• Conduct all clinical consultations for outpatients
• Approve marketing authorization for new drugs

Correct Answer: Lead medication error reporting, root-cause analysis and system-based improvements to reduce harm

Q12. Which responsibility is expected from patients to support QUM?

• Disregard information about side effects and continue therapy regardless
• Adhere to prescribed regimens, report adverse effects and inform providers about allergies and other medicines
• Make procurement decisions for hospitals
• Manufacture their own medicines at home

Correct Answer: Adhere to prescribed regimens, report adverse effects and inform providers about allergies and other medicines

Q13. Clinical pharmacist interventions most directly lead to which outcome?

• Increased length of hospital stay in all cases
• Improved dosing, therapy optimization, reduced adverse drug events and lower medication-related costs
• Replacement of physicians in diagnostic decision-making
• Elimination of the need for pharmacovigilance systems

Correct Answer: Improved dosing, therapy optimization, reduced adverse drug events and lower medication-related costs

Q14. What is the primary purpose of an institutional formulary in the context of QUM?

• To list every marketed medication without evaluation
• To promote rational, evidence-based and cost-effective selection of medicines for use in that institution
• To mandate use of only the most expensive drugs
• To replace clinical guidelines entirely

Correct Answer: To promote rational, evidence-based and cost-effective selection of medicines for use in that institution

Q15. How does a National Essential Medicines List (EML) support QUM?

• By encouraging indiscriminate use of all available drugs
• By prioritizing a limited list of effective, safe and cost-effective medicines to meet public health needs and guide procurement
• By banning all generic medicines
• By setting hospital staffing ratios

Correct Answer: By prioritizing a limited list of effective, safe and cost-effective medicines to meet public health needs and guide procurement

Q16. Which responsibility is specific to Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) services in QUM?

• Performing routine microbiology cultures for all patients
• Measuring drug concentrations and advising dose adjustments for drugs with narrow therapeutic indices
• Designing hospital architecture
• Conducting vaccination campaigns exclusively

Correct Answer: Measuring drug concentrations and advising dose adjustments for drugs with narrow therapeutic indices

Q17. What role do health educators play to improve QUM at the community level?

• Manufacturing medicines for local pharmacies
• Improving patient and public health literacy, safe medicine use and adherence through targeted education
• Approving clinical trials for new drugs
• Setting national regulatory standards

Correct Answer: Improving patient and public health literacy, safe medicine use and adherence through targeted education

Q18. What is the primary function of a quality control laboratory in the medicine supply chain?

• Providing bedside counselling to patients
• Testing medicine samples for identity, potency, purity and stability to ensure quality
• Setting clinical practice guidelines for prescribers
• Managing hospital insurance claims

Correct Answer: Testing medicine samples for identity, potency, purity and stability to ensure quality

Q19. Which responsibility is central to supply chain managers to support QUM?

• Prescribing antibiotics for surgical prophylaxis
• Forecasting demand, preventing stockouts and ensuring appropriate storage and distribution of medicines
• Performing clinical audits of surgical technique
• Running bedside diagnostic imaging

Correct Answer: Forecasting demand, preventing stockouts and ensuring appropriate storage and distribution of medicines

Q20. Which statement best reflects the ethical responsibility of healthcare providers in QUM?

• Prescribe medicines based on promotional incentives rather than patient need
• Prescribe and recommend treatments solely in the patient’s best interest, avoiding undue industry influence
• Always choose the newest and most expensive option irrespective of evidence
• Delegate all prescribing decisions to non-clinical administrators

Correct Answer: Prescribe and recommend treatments solely in the patient’s best interest, avoiding undue industry influence

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