Abstract

The Thai elderly population has rapidly increased; a number of diseases have been reported, which are mainly associated with overuse of medications. Evidently, Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and Tricyclic Antidepressants (TCAs) have been commonly given to elderly patients, which might have caused adverse drug reactions (ADRs). It is essential to use screening tools in early detection of high-risk medications (HRM) which should be weighed by their benefits and risks. This study aims to identify the prevalence and patient factors associated with HRM. The HRM screening tool, developed by a Thai working group of drug system research, was applied in this cross-sectional study. 65-year-old and older inpatients that had at least one admission at the study hospital during the fiscal year 2013 were systematically sampled. Descriptive statistics were used for conducting prevalence. Logistic regression was used to analyze the association between patient factors and HRM with type I error = 0.05. Regarding exclusion criteria, the sample of the study group used 393 elderly inpatients. 30 out of 393 inpatients (7.6%) received HRM. The prevalence of those receiving NSAIDs, TCAs, and both, were 3.8, 3.6, and 0.3%, respectively. Patients who had a length of hospitalization of more than 6 days were likely to be at risk of HRM compared with those of 1 to 3 days. (OR = 3.704, 95%CI = 1.242-11.041, p = 0.019). In conclusion, patients who had longer hospitalizations had a higher chance of being given HRM (NSAIDs and TCAs), so that the more medications were prescribed, the higher prevalence of HRM was observed.