[Study on drug use in elderly outpatients in Beijing].

OBJECTIVE

To understand the situation of drug use, drug request, combination of drugs and daily drug dose (DDD) among elderly patients, to provide scientific evidences for safely, effectively, economically and rationally on disease prevention and improving the quality of life of the elderly patients.

METHODS

A 2-year(1998-1999) prescriptions database which was set up according to different departments of consultation, patient age, sex, consultation date, and name of drugs, dosage was used for the study. Prescriptions were randomly selected on 3-4 days in every month, from 22 hospitals in Beijing. FOXPRO software was used for statistics and analyses. Information of elderly patients (> or = 60 year) on status of drug use, was collected and compared with general patients.

RESULTS

The proportion of elderly patients' prescription was 19.9%, with an average number of drugs prescribed in elderly patients 2.71, which was 0.27 higher than that of the general patients. Proportion of injections per every hundred elderly patients prescriptions was 18.4%. The major kinds of drugs were those related to cardiovasculars and vitamins. The most frequent drug was vitamin E nicotinate. DDD on elderly patients was lower than that defined by WHO and drug instruction, but higher than that of the general patients during the same period and was increasing. Daily dose of anti-hypertensions was also higher. The rate of consultation for cardiovascular diseases was high. The ratio of drugs in accordance with national essential drug list was 87.5%.

CONCLUSIONS

The rates of elderly patients' prescription, average number of drugs per prescription, proportion of injections and DDD were high. The rational drug use on elderly patients should be given more concerns.