Relationship between polypharmacy and potentially inappropriate prescription in patients over 65 in a Spanish rural area. A comparison of STOPP and Beers criteria

Abstract

[EN] The objective of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of potentially inappropriate prescription (PIP) and establish the relationship between PIP and polypharmacy in patients who take chronic medications. We used STOPP (version 2) and Beers' criteria (2015) in order to detect PIP's.

Method - Cross-sectional study carried out in a Health Center of Spain in patients over 65 years old. We made a database of the patients' information obtained from electronic medical records, such as age, gender, blood test, and active medication. Beers' and STOPP criteria were applied for PIP detection.

Results - From 351 patients, PIP prevalence was 34 and 25% for STOPP and Beers' criteria respectively. PIP frequency was significantly higher in patients who take more than 6 drugs.

Conclusions - Our study suggest that inappropriate prescription is a prevalent problem and is significantly related to polypharmacy. Our efforts should focus on applying the tools we have in order to reduce PIP's as well as control polypharmacy in older patients. A creation of a new standard and its integration to a computer model should be consider.