JPBS
× About the Journal Scope of the Journal SPER Publications Editorial Board Abstracting and Indexing Articles in Press Current Issue Archives Submit Article Author Guidelines Advertise Join as Reviewer Contact Editorial Policies and Peer Review Process Journal Policies Publishing Ethics

Journal of Pharmaceutical and BioSciences

 
Year : 2014   |  Volume : 2  |  Issue : 3  |  Page : 72-79

A review of screening tools used for the assessment of appropriateness of prescription’s among elderly patients

Mandavi Kashyap, Muhammad Zahid Iqbal
Inappropriate medication use in elderly population has long been an issue of healthcare quality along with over and under use of medication. Several factors like increasing age, availability of new classes of drugs, and changes in physicians prescribing habits contributed to changes in the drug use patterns among elderly. The assessment of the appropriateness of prescription in elderly is an essentially complex task and the health researchers have identified various cases of inappropriate drug use in the elderly in several countries. Different screening tools were prepared for the assessment of appropriateness of prescription and some of them are being used for assessment of appropriateness of prescription. In this perspective, the Beer’s Criteria is one of the most commonly used tools. None of the tools in its original contour is applicable to any country as there are differences in the pharmaceutical market of different countries, their prescribing patterns, diseases characteristics, physician areas and most of all, the patient’s characteristics. This review explains advantages and limitations of all available different screening tools that can significantly improve elderly pharmacotherapy. The author believes that this review will highlight the requirement of modification of tools with respect to real time practice in terms of country specific prescribing behavior to avoid inappropriate prescription.
[]*
Print this article     Email this article

 

SPER Publications

Refining Quality Research..