Frequency assessment of inappropriate drugs in elderly patients referring to emergency department

Abstract

Old people are more prone to adverse drug reactions because their use of drugs is more than other age groups. Drugs prescription sometimes has more disadvantages than benefits and affects the health system economically .To overcome this problem many explicit criteria like Beer criteria have been established. The necessity of this problem makes us evaluate the frequency of potentially inappropriate drugs (PIDs) in the elderly referring to the emergency department. Methods: In this study, elderly patients above 65 referring to emergency department of Imam Reza hospital, which has been admitted in the second month of each season, following taking informed consent, were evaluated. Demographic information, past medical history and drug history were assembled by interview and collected data were analyzed statistically. Results: The total number of patients were 323, 44.9% women and 55.1 % men. The mean age was 75.7. The average number of drugs per patient was 3.8 and older patients were taking more drugs. At least one of the inappropriate drugs were prescribed for 24% of all patients. The most common inappropriate drug and drug class was clonazepam and benzodiazepines, respectively. Except for number of drugs, none of demographic factors, being sex, age and accommodation has any correlation with PIDs. Patients on ≥4 were at risk of PID with sensitivity of 80% (AUC = 0.809, p value < 0.001)