Drugs Dictionary Offline app: a drug reference app for your patients

Understanding medications, both prescription and over the counter, can be tough for patients. Many commercial pharmacies like Walgreens have developed pharmacy apps to help. Other apps, like Iodine, provide curated and crowd-sourced information on medications for patients.

The Drugs Dictionary Offline app is designed for the layperson, with information on prescription and over-the-counter medications. The developer describes itself as the ‘best drugs dictionary’ with a ‘friendly and beautiful’ interface. No registration or login is required to use this health app.

The dictionary is simple and straightforward with an alphabetical list of drugs from which the user can select. Options in the Drugs Dictionary Offline app include searching for a medication. The search function seems limited to only what’s in this health apps’ database. For example, Abilify is readily found via the list or search however, the generic aripiprazole is not found.

Basic information on each medication is provided by the Drugs Dictionary Offline app including uses, side effects, and what to do when a dose is missed. Drug photos are also included. The source of the information is not clear and appears as if it may have been cut and pasted from another site. One problem with the app is fullscreen ads that pop up when a drug is selected from the list.

Users can select More Drugs at the top left corner of the screen for additional drug info such as mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, and drug doses and prices. Again, it’s not clear what the source of this information might be. Also, the last update was one year ago.