Polypharmacy in Primary Care Practices among Chronic Elderly Patients in Gaza Strip

Abstract

Introduction: The increasing number of elderly, and drug use among the elderly, emphasizes the need for continuous monitoring of drug utilization. Chronic diseases are frequent among the older population; the rate of drug related problems and drug-drug interactions (DDIs) with the medical and financial consequences are enormous. Polypharmacy (PP) is defined as the concomitant use of 5 or more medications. We studied PP among chronic elderly patients in Gaza Strip and its distri-bution among primary health care clinics in different areas. Materials and Methods: This study is a descriptive analytical study, analyzing prescription data from general practices during a 3-month time period, to measure the prevalence of PP and medication errors among chronic elderly pa-tients. Data were collected directly from the prescriptions and medical records, which contain per-sonal data for patients like patient age and gender, included the current illness, drug treatment for the current illness, chronic disease/s and drug treatment for chronic disease/s. SPSS software was used to analyze the obtained data. Results: Percent of major PP was the highest among patients aged 60 -69 years when compared with other ages categories of study population but not reached to be statisticaly significant (0.012). Major PP was higher in female patients than that in male pa-tients but difference wasn't statistically significant (0.5). The average number of drug per pre-scription was 3.4 drug; and the minimum value per prescription was 1 meanwhile maximum value was 9 (SD + 1.7). Conclusion: PP (use of five drugs or more) is more prevalent among elderly pa-tients with multiple diseases. Female patients consume more drugs than male do. There were some regional differences in drug utilization not explained by morbidity, suggesting some varia-tions in prescribing behaviors. M. Taleb et al.