[Quality assessment of drug use in the elderly]. / Avaliação da qualidade do uso de medicamentos em idosos.

INTRODUCTION: The objective is to evaluate the quality of medication utilization through the analysis of the pattern of usage, the degree of compliance to essential drug lists, therapeutic value and by drug interactions found among women over 60 years of age. METHODS: Six hundred thirty-four women enrolled at the Open University of the Third Age were studied. Data was collected through pattern-oriented, tested questionnaires. The variables examined were related to drugs and to drug utilization. The units of analysis used were the drugs and the individual. RESULTS: Of 634 women that participated in the study, 9,1% did not use drugs. The number of medications taken vary from 1 to 17. The average is 4,0 drugs/woman. Among the 2.510 pharmaceutical specialties mentioned by the interviewed, 538 different substances were identified. About 26% of the medications were in agreement with the recommendations of the World Health Organization and 17% with recommendations of the "Relação Nacional de Medicamentos Essenciais". Seventeen percent of the drugs are inappropriate for use in seniors; 14,1% of the women may suffer consequences for taking drugs of the same therapeutic class, and 15, 5% are exposed to interactions. CONCLUSIONS: The data suggest that the pattern of the medication utilization is considerably influenced by the medical prescription and that their quality is harmed by the low selectiveness of the pharmaceutical market