title: [Prevalence of potentially inappropriate drug prescription in the elderly].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  One of the causes of preventable adverse drug events (ADES) in older patients constitutes inappropriate prescription of drugs (PIM). The PIM is where risks exceed the clinical benefit. Several instruments can be use to measure this problem, the most used are: a) Beers criteria; b) Screening tool to Older People Potentially inappropriate Prescription (STOPP); c) Screening tool to Alert Doctors to Right Appropriate indicated Treatments (START); d) The Medication Appropriateness Index (MAI). This study aims to assess the prevalence of PIM, in a population of older adults in three clinical scopes of university hospital.
  
  
  METHODS
  cross sectional study of 300 cases from a random sample of fields: hospitalization (n=100), ambulatory (n=100) and emergency (n=100), all patients over 65 years old or more who where treated at our hospital.
  
  
  RESULTS
  1355 prescription drugs were analized, finding patients hospitalized (PIM) of 57.7%, 55%, 26%, and 80% according to Beers, in ambulatory 36%, 36.5%, 5% and 52% with the same tools and in emergency 35%, 35%, 6% y 52% with the same tools. Was found significant association the PIM with polipharmacy with Beers, STOPP and MAI.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  results can be compare to world literature (26-80% vs 11-73.1%). The STOPP-START used in an integrated manner would be best estimating the problem of PIM.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Calidad y seguridad del paciente, Hospital Austral, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Electronic address: afajreldin@cas.austral.edu.ar.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fajreldines
authors.affiliation: Sistema de Información Hospitalario (HIS), Hospital Austral, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Insua
authors.affiliation: Dirección Médica, Hospital Austral, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Schnitzler
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D011307:Drug Prescriptions; D064420:Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions; D006801:Humans; D057970:Inappropriate Prescribing; D015995:Prevalence
keywords: Adultos mayores; Estudio de prevalencia; Inappropriate prescription; Older adult; Prescripción inapropiada de medicamentos; Prevalence study