Review of Treatments in Polypharmacy Patients over 75 Years and its Relevance to Recommendations of the Primary Care Therapeutic Guide Evidence-Based

Abstract

Objective: to identify the prescribed drugs in the elderly and its use in the Therapeutic Guidelines in Primary Care based on Evidence of the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine of 2007. Design: descriptive and cross-sectional study. Material and methods: 1 930 patients, belonging to a Health Center, over 75 years were identified who consumed five or more drugs during the three months prior to the end. It was obtained a random sample of 248 (80% power and 95% significance level). The medical records were reviewed and the following variables were recorded: age, sex, drugs and pathology of each patient. The statistical analysis was done by the SPSS 16.0 program. Results: of all the polypharmacy patients 60% were women; 43% of the patients were between 75 and 79 years, and an average of 7.01 of drugs consumption and the group of 80 to 84 years consumed an average of 7.86. Women between 80 to 84 years consumed more than eight drugs; a male in this group had a maximum consumption of 16 drugs. The use of drugs as the fisrt indication was adequate in 43.34%, as a second indication in 10.9% and not adequate in 45.76%. Conclusion: inadequate therapy in these prescriptions matches with other studies. It is essential that all the patient data records are registered correctly