New Tool Assesses Medicine Safety for Drivers

Researchers develop the FMB scale, a more precise system for evaluating medication risks behind the wheel.

"Many medicines can cause drowsiness, dizziness, or loss of concentration, yet information about these effects is often scattered and not easy to interpret."
— Salvador Borja Ripoll, lead study author

The Problem with Current Risk Assessment

A team from the SABIEN group at the ITACA Institute of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), working with partner institutions, has created a new tool to estimate the risk of using medicines while driving.

The research, led by Vicente Traver and Salvador Borja and published in Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety, introduces the FMB scale (Mobility and Risk Basis Factor). This continuous, multifactorial model improves upon the traditional DRUID system (Driving under the Influence of Drugs, Alcohol and Medicines), currently Europe's most widely used reference.

The DRUID system has known limitations, including poor reproducibility, limited clinical applicability, and difficulty distinguishing between medicines with similar risk profiles.

How the FMB Scale Works

The FMB scale structures key variables related to driving, including:

• Adverse effects and their frequency
• Dosage and treatment phase
• Pharmaceutical form

By combining these factors, the scale generates a continuous index that reflects risk under real-world conditions.

Key Advantages

The results show that the FMB scale reproduces the qualitative classification of the DRUID system while offering greater resolution within each category. This makes it easier to identify differences between medicines and improves assessment near critical risk thresholds.

Future Applications

The tool could be integrated into:

• Mobile applications
• Electronic prescribing systems
• Pharmacy software

This would help users make informed decisions and enhance road safety.

Acknowledgments

The research team acknowledges the contribution of the late Ferran Mocholí, whose initial proposal initiated this work.