A study of the prevalence of potentially inappropriate medication in elderly in a tertiary care teaching hospital in the state of Odisha

Introduction: Quality and safety of prescribing in older people remains a global healthcare concern. Inappropriate prescribing in the elderly population is now considered a major public health issue because of its direct association to morbidity, mortality and wastage of health resources. The study was initiated to study the prevalence of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) in elderly patients coming to seek health care in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Odisha. Materials and Methods: 2012 AGS Beers Criteria was used to analyse the inappropriateness of the prescriptions in 700 new as well as old patients of either sex who had completed 65 years of age as on 30th September 2013. Data obtained was analyzed with the help of SPSS version 20.0. Multivariate logistic regression was applied to find out the predictors of PIM. Results: 21.86% patients were prescribed at least one potentially inappropriate medication. Most of the drug use was seen in the age group of 65-74 years. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that increased number of concurrent medications use (OR: 1.95, CI: 1.19 – 3.01, P = <0.01) was the predictor of inappropriate medication use as per 2012 AGS Beers Criteria. Age, gender and co-morbidity did not influence the use of inappropriate drugs. Conclusion: Inappropriate prescribing to elderly patients is influenced by the total number of drugs prescribed to an elderly patient. There is a need to improve the prescribing pattern in elderly. This will reduce the occurrence of adverse drug reactions, cost of treatment, and increase compliance in elderly patients.