Abstract
Potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) is described as a drug in which the risk of an adverse event when there is a safer alternate therapy is available. Beer’s criteria which is used as a guideline describes medications or medication classes, which are potentially inappropriate and need to be avoided or to be used with caution for elderly. WHO has established a set of core prescribing indicators for improving the rationality of drug use. Our aim is to evaluate the use of potentially inappropriate medications and prescriptions using WHO prescribing indicators in elderly. A prospective observational study was carried out in the neuropsychiatry government run tertiary care hospital in Northern India over a period of 3 months from January 2016-March 2016 using Beer’s Criteria and WHO prescribing indicators.Out of 1128 study subjects 56.1% were male and 43.9% females. The findings revealed that 73.3% PIM’sconstituting Anticonvulsants (23.5%), Benzodiazepines (15.6%), Antipsychotics (11.9%), Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (7.8%), Anticholinergics (7.4%), Tricyclic Antidepressants(6.7%) were predominantly prescribed. As supportive medications Vitamins, Minerals, Laxatives, Proton Pump Inhibitors were also given at a high rate of 26.7%. The assessment of WHO prescribing indicators includes average number of drugs per patient was 3.1%, 72% in generic name, percentage of antibiotics encounters were 2.1% while 1.6%. Percentage of encounters with injection and only 62% drugs were from Essential Drugs List (EDL). It is evident from our study that the neuropsychiatric diseases are treated mostly with PIMs and continuous assessment of prescription is necessary to improve the rationality of drug use.
