Rational Drug Use in Elderly Patients

The aim of this study is to determine the outpatient drug use attitudes and incomplete aspects of patients over 60 years of age who admitted to internal medicine clinics. The study was performed on 110 patients over 60 years of age who were treated in internal medicine clinics of Yunus Emre State Hospital between April and November 2017. Questionnaires were used in order to collect data. Percentage, mean, Chi-square test and logistic regression analysis were used for the analysing of the data. The average age of all participants was 70.3 ± 10.7 years, 65% were women, 85% were educated, 63.6% were living in the city center, 73.6% had an income of 1000-2000 TL and 96.4% of them have a health insurance. 46,4% of the participants reported that they had used or left remained drugs at home and 65% of them had consulted a physician or pharmacist if they wanted to use them again. 72.7% of the participants reported that the drugs they have at home were used in their diseases and 67.3% of them were paying attention to the expiration date. The relationship between the education level of the patients and variables such as drug withdrawal, storage conditions, recommended drug use, foods to be consumed with drugs and equivalent drug use was statistically significant when compared (p<0.05). According to the results obtained from logistic regression analysis; the educated group has been shown to use drugs with 6,748 times more recommendation (GA: 1,713-26,581) than the uneducated group. The results of drug storage conditions and use of equivalent drug were statistically significant when compared the participants who had health workers in their family with who does not have (p<0.05). The result of using antibiotics in upper respiratory tract disease such as colds and flu was statistically significant difference when compared the groups of the presence of health workers in the family or not (p <0.05) In our study, it was found that the information about drug use of patients over 60 years old was inadequate, serious mistakes were made in this issue and this subject were related to education level of participants