Elderly patients whose hospitalization was medication-related were more likely to receive medication recommendations by clinical pharmacist than patients whose hospitalization was unlikely medication-related in non-geriatric units.

BACKGROUND: Elderly patients are often polymedicated, and drug-related hospitalizations are common in this population. In our hospital, pharmacists from the mobile geriatric team (MGT) coordinate medication reviews (MR) for elderly patients hospitalized in non-geriatric wards, to prevent iatrogenic.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this work is to determine whether the drug-related origin of hospitalizations can be considered as a targeting criterion for performing MRs.

MATERIAL AND METHOD: We conducted a retrospective study of data from patients who received a MGT's MR between March 2021 and December 2022, from a single center of more than 1000 beds. The drug-related origin of the hospitalization was estimated as probable or unlikely by the AT-HARM10 tool. Between the two groups, we compared the number of potentially inappropriate prescriptions detected by the PIM-check and START/STOPP tools, drug-drug interactions (DI), unintended discrepancies (UDI) at entry reconciliation, the drug burden index (DBI), and the number of drug-related problems (DRP) i.e., START/STOPP score + DI + UDI. Linear regression of the number of DRP by AT-HARM10 score was computed.

RESULTS: 110 patients were included. 56 hospitalizations were estimated MRH and 54 non-MRH. Mean age (85.1 ± 7.0), ADL (3.8 ± 1.9), IADL (2.0 ± 1.6), and number of medications at entry (8.9 ± 3.8) were comparable in the 2 groups. Compared with non-MRH group, MRH group had a higher number of START/STOPP criteria (5.7 ± 3.5 vs 3.0 ± 2.6; p < 0.05), PIM-check overuses (2.1 ± 1.7 vs 1.4 ± 1.4; p < 0.05), DI (8.4 ± 9.0 vs 4.7 ± 4.7; p < 0.05), UDI at entry (4.0 ± 3.34 vs 2.2 ± 2.1; p < 0.05), and higher DBI score (0.9 ± 0.7 vs 0.3 ± 0.4; p < 0.05). The number of DRP was higher in group P (17.6 ± 10.8 vs 9.8 ± 6.3; p < 0.00.5). Linear regression showed a positive correlation between AT-HARM10 score and the number of DRP (r = 0.5, p < 0.05) with a coefficient of 7.7 (CI95% = [4.3; 11.1]) and an intercept of 9.8.

DISCUSSION: These results allow us to consider AT-HARM10 score as a targeting criterion for performing MR for elderly patients, as part of a curative approach to drug iatrogenic for these patients.