Assessment of potentially inappropriate medicines used in geriatric patients according to 2012 AGS Beer's criteria in tertiary care teaching hospital

Abstract

This prospective observational study was conducted to assess the potentially inappropriate prescriptions in hospitalized geriatric patients in Medicine ward of Rajah Muthiah Medical College Hospital, Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu. The Ethical Committee approval was obtained from the relevant Institutional Human Ethics committee. We have collected 520 cases of hospitalized geriatric patients at the age of 60 and above with both genders. All the Prescriptions were assessed for the use of potentially inappropriate medications by using American Geriatric Society (AGS) Beer's criteria, 2012. Drugdisease interactions and drugs to be used with caution in geriatric patients were also assessed using Beer's criteria. In our total study population 342(65.76%) cases were males and 178(34.23%) were females. 294 patients (56.53%) were prescribed (6-7) drugs for their treatment. More than 12 drugs were used in a single prescription for 41 patients that may lead more number of drug interactions. Drugs acting on Gastrointestinal system (n=563, 
16.59%) were the majority often prescribed drugs. The study concluded that the use of inappropriate medicines in the elderly patients is a problematic and challenged task. This study examined that all three sub-types of inappropriate prescribing outline in the 2012 AGS Beer criteria in the hospital setting. Regardless of different editions of Beers criteria used for evaluating the use of PIMs in the elderly, there is a high prevalence of PIM use in hospitalized elderly which must be brought to the attention of the Physicians and evaluate the 
medications they prescribe to geriatric patients using drug formularies.