Prescribing in elderly according to the principles of rational drug use and the dimentions of drug utilization in elderly in Turkey [Akilci ilaç kullanimi ilkeleri doǧrultusunda yaşlilarda reçete yazma ve Türkiye'de yaşlilarda ilac kullaniminin boyutlari]

Abstract

On the advance of rational use of drug (RUD) principles, emphasis on the issue of prescribing drugs and revising the dimensions of drug utilization in elderly Turkish population will aid alleviating drug-related problems and contribute in development of new strategies. If the decline in the physiological functions in elderly and its reflections on the pharmacokinetics and the pharmacodynamics of the drugs are taken into consideration, it is clearly predicted that irrational prescribing of drugs will lead to severe problems in this population. RUD principles require that on prescribing routine, information like date, patient's and physician's identity, name of the drug, drug's pharmaceutical form, active component of the pharmaceutical form, number of the boxes/packs, instructions on usage and the precautions shall be written on the recipes in a clear and legible format. Extra sensitivity must be designated on prescribing drugs to elderly, polypharmacy and multiple dosage schedules that are decreasing patient compliance shall be avoided. In the published studies between 1998 and 2005 in Turkey, it was showed that mean drug usage in elderly was 3.25 and it's mostly consisting of cardiovascular drugs, and analgesics/anti-inflammatory drugs. It was also demonstrated that the physicians were inadequately giving information about drugs and were writing the recipes in a erroneous format. It's obvious that if the physicians obey the principles of RUD, elderly patients will be treated properly and it will be possible to decrease the problems depending on drug utilization.