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