Elderly People With Drug-Related Problems Identified in the Emergency Department: Impact of Therapeutic Complexity on Consultations to the Health System

Jesus Ruiz Ramos, Ana María Juanes Borrego, Marta Blazquez Andion, Maria Antonia Mangues Bafalluy and Mireia Puig Campmany

SAGE Open, 2020, vol. 10, issue 2, 2158244020924373

Abstract: Different scales have been validated to assess the medication regimen complexity. However, the effect of this complexity on the risk of health care center consultations in patients with drug-related problems is unknown. This study’s objective is to evaluate the association between the Medication Regimen Complexity Index (MCRI) and the number of drugs prescribed and new consultations to the health care system in patients who visit an emergency service due to drug-related problems. This is a retrospective observational study. We included patients >65 years who attended in an emergency service for drug-related problems. To identify variables associated with health care center reconsultation, a multivariate analysis was performed, including demographic and comorbidity variables, number of drugs prescribed, and MCRI value. Two hundred and one patients were included. A significant association was found between the prescription of more than five drugs (odds ratio [OR] = 2.50, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [1.08, 5.79]), an MCRI > 20 (2.98 [1.46–6.09]), and an increase in the number of drugs prescribed (2.87 [1.57–5.21]) and its MCRI (2.06 [1.13–3.77]) at discharge and a new visit to the emergency department. An association was found between the prescription of more than five drugs, an MCRI > 20, an increase in the number of drugs, and in MCRI value at discharge and a new visit to any other health care center. The number of prescribed drugs and the medication complexity of patients who visit the emergency department for drug-related problems was associated with an increase in the number of revisits to the emergency department and to other health care centers.

Keywords: drug safety; emergency medicine; medication safety; drug-related pharmacy; geriatrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244020924373 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:10:y:2020:i:2:p:2158244020924373

DOI: 10.1177/2158244020924373

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().