Potentially inappropriate prescribing to older adults in ambulatory care: prevalence and associated patient conditions.

Purpose: To analyze potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP), its prevalence and patient conditions associated with this phenomenon, in a cohort of older adults receiving outpatient care in Mexico.

Methods: Data from 1252 adults ≥ 60 years of age, from primary care centers were analyzed. Information included sociodemographic data, medications, chronic diseases, polypharmacy (≥ 5 medications), functional dependence, cognitive impairment and frailty. Three logistic regression models were employed to identify associations between PIP (according to the Beers criteria) and different variable combinations.

Results: A total of 41.8% of participants had at least one PIP. The most frequently identified PIPs involved nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and glibenclamide; clonazepam in patients with cognitive impairment; and interactions of warfarin with NSAIDs. In the multivariate analyses, Model 1 showed that frailty and polypharmacy were associated with PIP. In Model 2, only polypharmacy was associated with PIP. For Model 3, lower educational levels, taking hypoglycemics, nervous system disease drugs, antiasthmatics, gastrointestinal disease drugs and anti-inflammatories-antirheumatics and analgesics, were associated with PIP.

Conclusion: PIP is common in outpatient treatment of health care services in Mexico. Its association with medical and nonmedical factors highlights the need to improve drug treatment quality focused on implementation of effective strategies, such as educative interventions, electronic medication safety alerts, and inclusion of pharmacists in the health team.