Adverse Drug Reactions in Long‐term Care Facility Residents

The study of 72 long-term care facility residents admitted to an acute geriatric ward was undertaken to determine the incidence of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and to establish whether this was a higher incidence than previously reported for this age group and level of care. An ADR incidence of 26 per cent was identified according to the WHO definition and scored by a probability scoring scale. The patients in this study were elderly (mean age 80 years) with many diagnoses and many medications, well known precipitators of ADR in the elderly. The fact that there is a high incidence of ADRs in the long-term care resident has been established, but the reasons for this phenomenon are still not clear. ADRs appear to contribute to the need to admit long-term care facility residents to acute geriatric wards.