Does potentially inappropriate prescribing increase the risk of adverse drug reactions in critically ill older adults?
While potentially inappropriate medications are highly prevalent in critically ill older adults, they are not the primary cause of adverse drug reactions, though their use should still be minimized.
There is a high prevalence of PIM used in acutely ill older people, but they do not seem to be the major cause of adverse drug reactions in this population. Although many PIMs had a clinical circumstance that led to their prescription during the course of ICU hospitalization, many were still present upon hospital discharge. Therefore, prescription of PIMs should be minimized to improve the safety of elderly patients.
Galli et al. (Mon,) studied this question.