Prescribing Patterns in the elderly to determine Potentially inappropriate prescribing patterns

Abstract

This study was done to determine the incidence of polypharmacy – in males and females admitted in Tertiary care hospital and to determine the drugs most inappropriate prescribed as per START/STOPP criteria. A retrospective study was conducted in Department of Pharmacology in collaboration with medical records Department. 150 subjects were included of both male and female gender above the age of 60 years with comorbidities, multiple prescriptions and only those who were compliant with medications. Pregnant women, post-operative patients and patients with a h/o of participation in trials in the least 6 months were not included. Data collection was done by accessing IPD files after obtaining permission from Medical Records Department. Patients will be divided in 2 categories of male and female. A list of their medications will be made and added in the Case Record form. The PIP indicator – STOPP/START was then is applied. After which since it is an exploratory studydescriptive analysis was be done. Results: There was a high frequency of polypharmacy seen. In the recruited sample 44% were males and 56% were females. Proportion of patients receiving at least one potentially inappropriate medication (PIM) was 11.22%.Proportion of patients subjected to at least one potential prescribing omission (PPO) was 12.54%. Proportion of patients exposed to potentially inappropriate drug prescriptions as a whole (PIPs=PIMs+PPOs) was 23.76%. Introduction The elderly are high consumers of both prescription and over-the-counter medications. Older people consume a disproportionate share of medication compared with younger people which puts them at higher risk of adverse drug events (ADEs) than the rest of the population. The occurrence of ADE contributes significantly to more frequent emergency department (ED) visits, unplanned hospitalizations, high healthcare costs, morbidity and mortality in older populations. [1,2.3] Furthermore, concurrent prescription of several drugs increases the risk of adverse reactions and drug interactions, and multiple drug therapy with complex drug regimens can lead to poor