ABSTRACT
Background: Information regarding prescribing potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) in elderly has not been well documented. Methods: The study was a cross sectional study done by analysing the case records of elderly patients admitted to general medicine and general surgery wards. The data was collected in a proforma which included patient’s name age, sex, diagnosis, investigations, and prescription. Beer’s explicit criteria 2012 were used to identify the PIMs in prescriptions. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was done to know the potential factors associated with prescribing PIMs. Results: The results showed that 44 out of 132 patients received atleast one PIM. The average number of drugs prescribed per patient was 7.5 (range 2-15). Out of 931 drugs prescribed 63 were found to be potentially inappropriate. Polypharmacy was a major factor associated with prescribing PIMs. Conclusions: Prescribing potentially inappropriate medications is common in elderly in-patients, polypharmacy being a major factor associated with prescribing PIMs.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Beers criteria are used to identify the potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) in elderly patients. However, the criteria have limitations such as lacking consideration of drug-drug and duplicated prescriptions. The aim of this study is to compare the efficacy of newly developed screening tool of older person's prescriptions (STOPP) with Beers criteria in identifying PIMs and adverse drug events (ADEs) in elderly patients. METHODS: We included 115 elderly patients older than 65 years who visited the outpatients' clinic or have been hospitalized for medical illness. Comprehensive geriatric assessments including medication review by the pharmacists were performed by the multidisciplinary team. Beers criteria and STOPP were used to find out PIMs. The association between PIMs defined by both criteria with ADEs was also evaluated. RESULTS: A total of 59 patients (50.4%) by Beers criteria and 76 patients (65.0%) by STOPP had been prescribed with PIMs. Compared with Beers criteria, STOPP had advantage in identifying more PIMs. In addition, STOPP could identify more ADEs related medications than Beers criteria. STOPP was also useful to detect duplicate drug class prescription and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for renal impaired patients. CONCLUSION: STOPP criteria PIMs can detect more duplicated prescription and are significantly associated with avoidable ADEs in older individuals compared with that of Beers criteria PIMs.