Inadequate drug prescribing: comparison of inappropriate drug rates at the end of a geriatric short-stay service with three prescribing tools.

ABSTRACT

To compare the proportion of prescriptions containing at least one inappropriate drug, as identified using three tools for optimizing drug prescriptions in the elderly. Cross-sectional, observational study based on the analysis of prescriptions of patients discharged between 1 September and 31 October 2014 in a short-stay geriatrics unit at the Louis Domergue de Trinité Hospital in Martinique (France). Each prescription was analysed using 3 tools, namely one for general medicine (Vidal © drug dictionary) and two tools specifically designed for geriatrics (the Laroche list of potentially inappropriate medications, and the STOPP-START toolkit). The number of prescriptions containing at least one inappropriate medication was recorded as evaluated with each tool. These prescriptions were then compared to investigate whether the two geriatric tools identified the same prescriptions as being inappropriate. In total, 53 prescriptions were analysed. The male-female sex ratio was 0.70. The average age of the patients was 84.5±6.2 years. Analysis according to the Vidal © drug dictionary identified the greatest number of inappropriate prescriptions (28.3% of all prescriptions). The proportion of prescriptions containing at least one inappropriate drug was lower with the two tools specific to geriatrics (11% for the Laroche list and 7.5% for the STOPP-START method). The general medicine Vidal © drug dictionary identified more inappropriate prescriptions than the tools specifically designed for geriatrics. The tools for aiding drug prescriptions in the elderly identified different drugs as being inappropriate.