title: [Priority of prescribed medication in patients with heart failure in an Internal Medicine Department].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Prescriptions provided to elderly patients with comorbidity on hospital discharge are usually complex. This study has aimed to know what proportion of drugs is considered essential by the prescribing doctors and the existing agreement on this qualification.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional study.
  
  
  METHODS
  general acute care hospital.
  
  
  METHODS
  random sample of 60 hospital discharges in patients hospitalized due to heart failure between 2004 to 2006 with 540 prescribed drugs.
  
  
  METHODS
  independent review by two internal medicine specialists and qualification of each of prescribed drugs as essential, advisable or not indicated. Calculation of the proportion of prescriptions according to priority, global and by therapeutic groups, and of the agreement between reviewers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  An average of 9 drugs (statistical deviation [SD] 2.4) and 13.5 daily takings (SD 4.6) by patient were prescribed on hospital discharge. The reviewers considered 68.4% of the prescriptions essential (95% confidence interval [CI], 65.5-71.2), advisable 25% (95% CI, 22.4-27.6) and not indicated 6.6% (95% CI, 5.1-8.1). An inverse relation between number of prescribed drugs and their proportion considered as essential was observed. Global agreement between reviewers in the classification of priority was relatively low: weighed Kappa 0.27 (95% CI, 0.19-0.36). More than 90% of the prescriptions were considered as essential in only 6 of the 15 therapeutic groups prescribed most, and good agreements in the qualification of their priority was only reached in 3 groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A considerable proportion of the prescribed medication on hospital discharge in patients with heart failure was not considered essential. Agreement reached between the reviewers in this qualification was low.
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Evaluación, Hospital Costa del Sol, Marbella, Málaga, Spain. ajpuente@hcs.es
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jiménez-Puente
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: García-Alegría
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Martín-Escalante
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Martos-Pérez
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Faus-Felipe
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Perea-Milla
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006748:Hospital Departments; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine; D008297:Male; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'