5PSQ-110 Withdrawn

Abstract

BackgroundImproving the quality of drug prescriptions is part of the corporate objectives of health systems. Finding the correlation between the quality of the prescription measured through a synthetic quality indicator (SIQ) and the prevalence of polymedication could help to enhance recommendations to physicians on improving SIQ.PurposeTo analyse the correlation between the proportion of polymedicated patients who are under the care of a physician and the quality of his medical drugs prescription.Material and methodsRetrospective observational study in which the prevalence of polymedicated patients of each of the primary care physicians of a health area of 4 55 364 inhabitants was analysed. The period of observation was 6 months, between February and July 2017. Prescription quality was determined by the score obtained in a SIQ. It assigns a score between 0 and 10 to the physician quality according to the prescription defined as choice drugs within 13 therapeutic areas. Bjerrum criteria for polymedication were taken into account: polymedicated (≥5 drugs) and hyperpolymedicated patients (≥10 drugs). According to both criteria, the proportion of polymedicates among all their patients was determined for each physician, dividing the number of polymedicated and hyperpolymedicated patients of the total number of patients with at least one drug. This ratio was analysed by the correlation coefficient (R2 pol and R2 hyp), defining a relationship correlation when R2 ≥0,5.ResultsTwo hundred and twenty-seven physicians were included in the analysis, with SIQ between 0 and 9.88. The total number of patients with at least one medication presecribed was 64 297. The total number of polymedicates with a number ≥5 and≥10 drugs was 39 188 and 5,684, respectively. Medium prevalence of polymedication by physician was 55% (range: 39% to 66%). Medium prevalence of hyperpolymedication by physician was 8% (range: 2% to 15%). The correlation coefficient R2 between the SIQ and the prevalence of polymedication and hyperpolymedication was: R2 pol=-0. 0011 and R2 hyp=0. 0033.ConclusionThe prevalence of polymedicated and hyperpolimedicated patients by a physician is not related to the quality of his prescription measured through the SIQ.Reference and/or Acknowledgements1. Bjerrum L, Rosholm JU, Hallas J, Kragstrup J. Methods for estimating occurrence of polypharmacy by means of a prescription database. Eur J Clin Pharmacol1997;53(1):7–11.No conflict of interest