The prevalence of drug-drug interactions and polypharmacy among elderly patients in Jordan

Abstract

Background: The number of people aged 60 or older is estimated to be 5.6% among Jordanian population, those elderly people need special medical care; since they have a greater prevalence of chronic diseases and therefore subjected to higher prevalence of polypharmacy and potential drug-drug interaction (pDDI). There is no data about polypharmacy and pDDI in elderly patients among the Jordanian population. Methods: Prescriptions for patients aged 60 or older were examined and those patients were interviewed in several community pharmacies and hospitals' outpatient pharmacies. The interviews covered factors that may affect the possibility of pDDI and polypharmacy including patient's education level, number of doctors the patient see, number of drugs the patient take, does the patient live alone and does the patient take the medication by himself. Results: 367 (51.5% male and 48.5% female) patients were interviewed and their prescriptions examined. The data showed that 334 (91%) had at least one pDDI of those 67 (18.3%) had a major pDDI and 281 (76.6%) had at least one moderate pDDI. Polypharmacy was found in 275 (74.9%) of the participants. Factors that were associated with incidence of major pDDI included polypharmacy, taking Alimentary tract and metabolism drugs or drugs acting on blood and blood forming organ, and patient taking medication by him/herself. Several factors were associated with moderate pDDI including seeing a general practitioner, while polypharmacy was associated with education level and number of diseases. Conclusion: High incidence of major and moderate pDDI and polypharmacy was found. This study emphasizes the need for a better control over elderly prescription in Jordan

Drugs-Induced QT Interval Prolongation among End-Stage Renal Disease Patients in Jordan

“…This result may attributed to low pharmaceutical care interventions, physicians poor adherence to the guidelines, and absence of clinical decision support system in the operated computerized physician order entry system (CPOE) . Our findings are in line with other studies in Jordan that indicated high rate of DDIs and poor adherence to the guidelines by physicians (21,22,27). The difference between the recent studies in Jordan and our study is that the patient group in our research is highly vulnerable to severe deadly complications, and thus urgent precautionary measures are necessary.…”

“…Physicians in Jordan demonstrated poor adherence to current practice guidelines for safe prescription of antibiotics (20)(21)(22)(23), proton pump inhibitors (24,25), and non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs (26). In addition, high rate of major and moderate drug-drug interactions was found among elderly patients in Jordan (27). As a possible solution, clinical pharmacists in Jordan exhibited the ability to identify and intervene on such inappropriate prescriptions (28,29).…”

Assessment of potential drug interactions among psychiatric inpatients receiving antipsychotic therapy of a secondary care hospital, United Arab Emirates

“…[ 8 ] Various pharmacoepidemiological studies conducted in the different parts of the world in various study settings, study design, duration, and diverse population and with various DDI assessment tools have reported the prevalence rates of pDDIs, varying from 5% to 91%. [ 9 10 ]…”

Translation and psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the revised Patients' Attitudes Towards Deprescribing questionnaire

“…The prevalence of polypharmacy in the Middle East was reported to be between 44.8 and 96% in different practice settings . In Jordan, 44.8–72.9% of elderly patients were found to have polypharmacy . Polypharmacy effects are not limited to elderly patients.…”

“…Indeed, it has been reported that around half (47.5%) of the adults at outpatients clinics have polypharmacy . Consequently, 91–96% of polypharmacy patients in Jordan had at least one potential drug–drug interaction . Moreover, 27.7% of adult patients in Jordan were found to have unnecessary drug therapy.…”