Relationship between medication safety-related processes and medication use in residential aged care facilities.
Australas J Ageing
; 2024 Jun 24.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38923377
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
To explore the association between the implementation of medication safety-related processes measured with the Medication Safety Self-Assessment for Long-Term Care (MSSA-LTC) tool and medication use in residential aged care facilities (RACFs).METHODS:
A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Australian RACFs. Data on facility characteristics, aggregated medication use at the facility level for selected medications commonly associated with a high risk of harm and the MSSA-LTC were completed by clinical pharmacists providing clinical pharmacy services. The Spearman's correlation test was used to evaluate the association between the MSSA-LTC score and medication use. A scatter plot between the MSSA-LTC score and medication use data was generated, and a linear trend line was plotted using the least squares method.RESULTS:
Data were collected from 31 RACFs servicing 2986 residents. Most medication safety-related processes were implemented in Australian RACFs. A higher facility MSSA-LTC score was associated with a lower proportion of residents with polypharmacy (r = -.48, p = .01) and one or more benzodiazepines (r = -.41, p = .03). In addition, a negative linear trend was observed between the MSSA-LTC score and the average number of medications per resident, the proportion of residents with one or more anticonvulsants and the proportion of residents using one or more opioid analgesics.CONCLUSIONS:
This study indicates that implementing medication safety-related processes may improve medication use in RACFs.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Language:
En
Journal:
Australas J Ageing
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Australia