TITLE:
Polypharmacy in Primary Care Practices among Chronic Elderly Patients in Gaza Strip
AUTHORS:
Mahmoud Taleb, Abed Al-Kareem Abed, Abedel Rahman Dahudi, Ahmed Najim, Adham Ahmed
KEYWORDS:
Polypharmacy; Elderly; Gaza Strip; Chronic Diseases; Primary Health Care
JOURNAL NAME:
Pharmacology & Pharmacy,
Vol.5 No.3,
March
27,
2014
ABSTRACT: Introduction: The increasing
number of elderly, and drug use among the elderly, emphasizes the need for
continuous monitoring of drug utilization. Chronic diseases are frequent among
the older population; the rate of drug related problems and drug-drug interactions (DDIs) with the
medical and financial consequences are enormous. Polypharmacy (PP) is defined
as the concomitant use of 5 or more medications. We studied PP among chronic
elderly patients in Gaza Strip and its distri- bution
among primary health care clinics in different areas. Materials and Methods:
This study is a descriptive analytical study, analyzing prescription data from
general practices during a 3-month time period, to measure the prevalence of PP
and medication errors among chronic elderly pa- tients.
Data were collected directly from the prescriptions and medical records, which contain
per- sonal data for patients like
patient age and gender, included the current illness, drug treatment for the
current illness, chronic disease/s and drug treatment for chronic disease/s.
SPSS software was used to analyze the obtained data. Results: Percent of major
PP was the highest among patients aged 60 - 69 years when compared with other ages categories of study population but not
reached to be statisticaly significant (0.012). Major PP was higher
in female patients than that in male patients but difference wasn’t
statistically significant (0.5). The average number of drug per prescription
was 3.4 drug; and the minimum value per prescription was 1 meanwhile maximum
value was 9 (SD + 1.7). Conclusion: PP (use of five drugs or more) is more prevalent among
elderly patients with multiple diseases. Female patients consume more drugs
than male do.
There were some regional differences in drug utilization not explained by
morbidity, suggesting some varia- tions in prescribing behaviors.