Potentially Inappropriate Medications in Elderly Outpatients by the 2012 Version of Beers Criteria: A Single Tertiary Medical Center Experience in South Korea

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The American Geriatric Society released the 2012 updated version of the Beers criteria with intentions to improve care of older adults by reducing their exposure to potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). However, there have been no reports on the prevalence of PIMs prescriptions according to the 2012 version of Beers criteria in South Korea. METHODS: This is a retrospective study using medical records and code analysis of each PIM to survey the prevalence of PIMs prescriptions and common PIMs used for elderly patients. Locating the PIMs was carried out in all outpatients who visited Asan Medical Center from May 2012 to April 2013. Selection of PIMs was based on the 2012 updated version of the Beers criteria. RESULTS: A total of 652,192 outpatients older than 65 years visited our medical center during the study period and were analyzed. Among them, 33,810 (5.19%) received at least one PIM and 125,498 cases of PIM prescriptions were written. The percentage of the patients who received at least two kinds of PIMs concurrently was 33.14%. Common PIMs were tramadol (24.15%), clonazepam(11.51%), ibuprofen (10.02%), megesterol (9.80%), and amitriptyline (9.51%). CONCLUSION: Our study investigated the prevalence of PIMs prescription for Korean elderly outpatients in a single tertiary medical center. Compared to previous reports using the older version of the Beers criteria, our study showed a change in the priority of common PIMs.