Prescribing Pattern of Drugs in the Geriatric Patients in Jazan Province, KSA

Inappropriate drug prescribing is a global problem affecting the healthcare system. This study was performed to assess the drug prescribing pattern in elderly persons as these are exposed to polypharmacy because of multiple chronic conditions. There are a lot of risk factors for polypharmacy which include age, sex, race, health status, educational level and a number of chronic diseases which generally come with increasing age. This study was carried out to find rational use of prescribed drugs in the diseases with respect to the elderly patients registered in General Hospital of Jazan, KSA and to also investigate polypharmacy. A prospective, cross-sectional study was carried out in hospitalized elderly patients(age, >65years) selected from the month of November 2012 to October 2013 which consists of: Drug prescription pattern as per Beer’s criteria, Percentage of category of drugs prescribed as per WHO core indicator, Missing Item Prevalence. Among 1034 elderly patients, the average age of study patients was 72years. The diseases found during this study were, hypertension, GIT disorders, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory tract diseases, diabetes mellitus. The average number of diseases present is 4+1 and the average number of drugs overall was 7+1. Among systemic route, commonly prescribed therapeutic class of medications were antibacterials(70.5%) and among oral route, pantoprazole was the most commonly prescribed medication(61.2%). This study demonstrates the prescribing patterns of drugs and usage of drugs in the elderly patients in the Jazan region of Saudi Arabia.