Prescribing Pattern of Drugs in the Geriatric Patients in Jazan Province, KSA

Abstract

Inappropriate drug prescribing is a global problem affecting the healthcare system. This study was performed to assess the drug prescribing pattern in elderly persons as these are exposed to polypharmacy because of multiple chronic conditions. There are a lot of risk factors for polypharmacy which include age, sex, race, health status, educational level and a number of chronic diseases which generally come with increasing age. This study was carried out to find rational use of prescribed drugs in the diseases with respect to the elderly patients registered in General Hospital of Jazan, KSA and to also investigate polypharmacy. A prospective, cross-sectional study was carried out in hospitalized elderly patients(age, >65years) selected from the month of November 2012 to October 2013 which consists of: Drug prescription pattern as per Beer's criteria, Percentage of category of drugs prescribed as per WHO core indicator, Missing Item Prevalence. Among 1034 elderly patients, the average age of study patients was 72years. The diseases found during this study were, hypertension, GIT disorders, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory tract diseases, diabetes mellitus. The average number of diseases present is 4+1 and the average number of drugs overall was 7+1. Among systemic route, commonly prescribed therapeutic class of medications were antibacterials(70.5%) and among oral route, pantoprazole was the most commonly prescribed medication(61.2%). This study demonstrates the prescribing patterns of drugs and usage of drugs in the elderly patients in the Jazan region of Saudi Arabia.

Drug Utilization Pattern and Potentially Inappropriate Medications among Elderly Inpatients in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Western Nepal

“…DISCUSSIONIn our study, highest numbers of patients were seen in age group of 65-70 (37.25%) which resembled the study carried out by different researchers9,10 where 48.17% and 10.08% of patients were of the same age group respectively.…”

“…12 In another study, antidiabetic drugs (15.58%) followed by analgesics (14.16%) were the most frequently prescribed class of drugs. 10 In our study, the average number of drugs prescribed per patient per encounter were 7.26 which is slightly lower than that of 8.19, the value obtained in the study of Basnet S et al13Average number of drugs per prescription was nearly equal to 7.09, the value obtained in the study of Sultan HA et al 9 Percentage of medicines prescribed by generic name was 9.6 % which was lower than study carried out by Mittal N et al(21.5%) 14 , Jafrin A et al(26.3%) 15 and Abraham F et al (9.09%) 16 . Lower prescribing of generic names is due to the prescribers are more conversant with the brand names than generic names of the product.…”

“…10 Antibiotics were most the commonly prescribed class of drugs in various studies. 9,13,14 The percentage of medicines prescribed from the essential medicines list was 57% which was slightly lower the than study carried out by Sapkota S et al (75%). 11 Use of drugs from the essential medicine list should promoted for optimal use of limited financial resources, to have acceptable safety, and to satisfy the health needs of the majority of the population.…”