ABSTRACT

Background: Geriatric population are the most vulnerable population for multiple drug regimen and ill-suited prescriptions. These preeminent multiple drug regimen suggestion in elderly patients may be of patient or physician origin. Beer’s criteria have been developed to evaluate and to help in the reduction of potentially ill-suited drug suggested to elderly patients. Objective: The current study was done to analyse the details regarding drugs prescribed for aged above 60 in in and outpatients of a medical college hospital and to evaluate its suitability according to the Beer’s criteria. Materials & Methods: This retrospective study was conducted in Sree Balaji Medical College & Research Hospital from February 2020 to January 2021. A total of 1600 admission and prescription details in records of in and outpatients of ?60years in surgical, medical, and orthopaedic wards and OPD were reviewed. Pertinent details were recorded in a pre-designed format& data was evaluated. Results: The major proportion of case records shows the patients were suffering from Infectious disorder (28%) next in line were cardiovascular system (19%). The prescription details of drugs revealed majority had antibiotics (28%). Multiple drug regimens were prescribed for 49.6% patients. According to Beer’s criteria, 605 drugs were not found in appropriate suitability to the elderly population and the rationale of which cannot be corelated which is of most concern in this study population. Conclusion: This analysis on prescriptions gave a glimpse of pattern of ailments, infirmities in older patients, the drugs used to treat them and detected the lacunae in prescription suitability in elderly. This also found multiple drug regimens prescribed were comparatively high, despite of many reasons to substantiate its unavoidability there is a pressing need to reduce it in future by relevant measures of interdisciplinary approach. Keywords: Prescription pattern in geriatric population, multiple drug regimen (polypharmacy)
Publication date: 01/12/2021

https://ijbpas.com/pdf/2021/December/MS_IJBPAS_2021_5790.pdf

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https://doi.org/10.31032/IJBPAS/2021/10.12.5790