Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Potentially inappropriate medication prescribing patterns in geriatric patients in a health facility in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Wegayehu Lemma^1,2, Mojahidul Islam¹ , Eskindir Loha³

¹School of Pharmacy, Sharda University, Plot No. 32-34, Knowledge Park III, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India; ²Federal Ministry of Health Ethiopia, PO Box 1234, Addis Ababa; ³Hawassa University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Hawassa, Ethiopia.

For correspondence:- Mojahidul Islam Email: mojahidul.islam@sharda.ac.in Tel:+919582447947

Accepted: 19 October 2020 Published: 30 November 2020

Citation: Lemma W, Islam M, Loha E. Potentially inappropriate medication prescribing patterns in geriatric patients in a health facility in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Trop J Pharm Res 2020; 19(11):2441-2446 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v19i11.27

© 2020 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To assess potentially inappropriate medication (PIMs) prescribing pattern in geriatric patients attending the outpatient department (OPD) of the General Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Methods: The study was conducted retrospectively for geriatric patients sixty years of age and above, who visited an Outpatient Department of Tirunesh Beijing General Hospital. Data were gathered for a duration of one month from prescriptions/encounters at the Outpatient Pharmacy, and analysis was carried out using SPSS (Statistical Packages for Social Sciences) version 20, while and drug prescribing indicators, and potentially inappropriate medications were calculated based on WHO prescribed indicators and Beer’s criteria.

Results: Of the 400 encounters assessed, 218 (55 %) were male and 182 (45 %) were female. Four hundred prescriptions contained 1,003 drugs. Out of the mean drug per prescription of 2.51, drugs prescribed by generic names were 91.62 %, those prescribed from NLEM (national list of essential medicine) were 91.53 %; prescriptions with an antibiotic injection were 27.75 % and 16.25% respectively, and more than 5 drugs were prescribed only for 10.8 % of geriatrics patients. Cardiovascular drugs constituted about a quarter of the prescribed medications with 271 (27.02 %); others were analgesics, anti-inflammatory, anti-infective, endocrine drugs, gastrointestinal drugs, and other drugs, accounting for 116 (11.6%), 112 (11.2%), 96 (9.6%), 94 (9.4%) and 187 (18.6%), respectively. Potentially inappropriate drugs occurred in 46.9 % of the cases.

Conclusion: Potentially inappropriate medication (PIMs) prescribing in geriatric is highest in percentage. Proper interventions are needed from all concerned bodies to avoid drug-related complications.

Keywords: Geriatric, Drug utilization, Potentially inappropriate medications, Beers criteria