NSAIDs, antiarrhythmics, antidepressants: these are drugs whose administration in the elderly can cause serious side effects, up to causing hospitalizations or deaths. But an educational program aimed at family doctors can lead them to reduce the prescribing of potentially harmful medicines in older patients. This is demonstrated by the results of a research, which appeared on Drug Aging, carried out by the Parma Ausl in collaboration with the Emilia Romagna region and the Thomas Jefferson University of Philadelphia. The activity of the 303 family doctors of the Parma Ausl and their prescribing activity in favor of the entire over-65 population of the same city (about 90,000 people) was monitored for 2 years by a multidisciplinary team. Doctors were given a list of drugs to avoid and a list of possible alternatives; in addition, annual meetings were held to analyze data on potentially inappropriate prescribing; finally, educational sessions were organized through academic lectures and clinical case studies. We then proceeded with the quarterly survey of the rate of exposure to potentially dangerous drugs, from baseline to the end of the intervention. To avoid bias and confounding effects, the prescriptions of this group of doctors were compared with those made by 325 family doctors of a nearby Ausl, that of Reggio Emilia, which is also similar in terms of number of elderly people. At the end of the 2-year observation it was found that the rate of prescriptions of potentially dangerous drugs for the health of the elderly in Parma had decreased by 31.4% compared to Reggio Emilia, where the reduction was 21.6%. "The 10% difference means that 608 elderly people were spared the potentially toxic effects of these drugs," especially NSAIDs and digoxin, he explained. Stephen of the Channel of the Ausl of Parma, according to which «the one carried out is an important public health intervention» which can be replicated in other realities.
January 25, 2013 – DoctorNews33
FCKUserFile/FCKUserFilesNaz/file/slides_IncontroParmaASL_Chiesi_marzo2012_final.pdf
"Educate" not to prescribe harmful drugs to the elderly
Never like this time the main objective is not only to save money. With a specific research, the Parma Local Health Authority - in collaboration with the Emilia Romagna region and with the Jefferson University of Philadelphia - came to the conclusion that "an ad hoc educational program can lead family doctors to reduce considerably
