A cross-sectional one-day survey of drug prescribing and use in elderly in-patients was carried out in Dundee hospitals. Altogether 873 patients were studied and analyses of prescribing patterns were carried out by patient categories--medical, surgical, geriatric, psychiatric and mentally subnormal--and by major drug groups. While the average number of drugs prescribed per patient on the study day was 3.3, which was not excessive, other results highlighted some possible problems of therapy, viz. the wide range of drugs used within drug groups, the common use of psychotropic drugs, dose regimes which although used in a geriatric population differed little from general adult dosages, and which sometimes involved many administrations per day. Examples were described relating to the use of nitrazepam, phenothiazines and tricyclic antidepressants.

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The drugs prescribed for children in Tayside hospitals in 1974 and 1975 were surveyed using the computer files of over 4000 children in each year. The results were compared with similar data on adult patients. Although similar proportions of both age groups received drugs, less than 3 drugs were prescribed for the great majority of the children (mean 2.5) compared with twice that number for adults. Seven classes of drugs accounted for almost four-fifths of the drugs prescribed for children but the same classes formed two-fifths only of the total drug use in adults. There was significantly greater use of antihistamine/sedative, anticonvulsant and decongestant/mucolytic drugs in children than in adults while the reverse was true for diuretics, KCL, cardio active agents, sedatives/hypnotics, and tranquillisers. Antimicrobial drugs accounted for approximately one-third of the total drugs used in children and one half of all patients received at least one drug from this class. Penicillin preparations alone accounted for 65.1 per cent of all antimicrobial drug use. The percentage of children given ampicillin fell by almost half from 1974 to 1975 with a corresponding increase in the proportion receiving amoxycillin.

SummaryAnticoagulant control (as indicated by the percentage of Thrombotest values outside a defined range) was determined in out-patients attending a hospital anticoagulant clinic and the influence of patients' age and sex, indication for anticoagulation, concurrent drug therapy and duration of anticoagulant treatment studied. Of these factors, duration of treatment was most important, control being particularly poor in the first 6 months (40%oof Thrombotest values outside the 5-15% range, compared with 17% in patients treated with anticoagulants for more than 2 years). Control was also influenced by patients' age and the data supported previous evidence of an increased sensitivity to anticoagulants in the elderly. IntroductionOral anticoagulants belong to a relatively small group of drugs in which the effect of the drug is easily assessed. Nevertheless, a previous retrospective study (O'Malley et al., 1977) showed that,