Assessment of Drug Related Problems among Elderly Patients Visiting Menelik II Referral Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2020-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Abeba University
Abstract
Drug therapy in the elderly needs an emphasis on the age related changes in drug pharmacokinetics
and pharmacodynamics profile. As the age increase, people usually have more health problems
that lead to the use of more medications than younger people do. Identification and prevention of
drug related problems (DRPs) in geriatric outpatients will be an important step towards reducing
hospital admissions. There are different studies regarding to DRPs in general population but
studies regarding DRPs in elderly patients are scarce specifically in MIIRH there is no previous
studies. This study aimed to assess DRPs among chronic elderly patients. A hospital based crosssectional
study
was
conducted
on
236
chronic
elder
patients
who
were
on
follow
up-care
at
MIIRH.
Data
collection
was
done
through patient interview and medical charts review. Epi data version
4.2 and IBM SPSS version 23 were used for data entry and analysis respectively. Descriptive
statistics, cross-tabulation, univariable and multivariable binary logistic regressions were used and
P < 0.05 was used to declare association. More than two-thirds of patients had two or more
comorbid disease. The most common diseases encountered were hypertension (72.0%) and
diabetes mellitus (56.7%). In this study, 740 medications were used with the mean number of drugs
per day was 3.14 ± 1.658 per patient. ACEIs 121(50.8%), antidiabetic agents 94(39.5%) and CCBs
75(31.5%) were commonly prescribed class of drugs. Forty nine percent of patients encountered
at least one DRP and 118 drug related problems were identified. The average number of drug
related problems per patient was 0.5. Non-compliance (45.8%) %) and needs additional drug
therapy (24.6%) were major DRPs identified. antidiabetic agents were the most frequent drug class
involved in DRPs. From 740 medications, 122(16.5%) drugs were from beers medication list,
where (44.1%) of participants were exposed at least to one potentially inappropriate medications.
To conclude, there is high prevalence of DRPs and PIMs. Marital status, number of comorbidity
and number of drug prescribed have significant association with the occurrence of DRPs.
Description
Keywords
Potentially Inappropriate Medication, Drug Related Problems, Elders