Prescription drug use, diagnoses, and healthcare utilization among the elderly

BACKGROUND: More elderly patients affected by severe and chronic diseases a re treated in primary care. Reports on the use of prescription drugs by the general elderly population are scarce, and more investigations are needed to optimize pharmaceutical rare for these patients. OBJECTIVE: To analyze prescription drug use, diagnoses, and healthcare util ization among noninstitutionalized elderly patients. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING AND PATIENTS: All people greater than or equal to 65 years old (n = 4642) living in the community of Tierp, Sweden, in 1994 were included. Pre scription drug use and healthcare utilization have been registered for all inhabitants of the community since 1972. Information about filled prescript ions and diagnoses were obtained from a computerized research register. RESULTS: Prescription drug use was high among the elderly (78%); the most u sed pharmacologic groups were cardiovascular, nervous system, and gastroint estinal medications. Women used more prescription drugs than men (average 4 .8 vs. 3.8) and had more nonfatal diagnoses. Use of five or more different prescription drugs during 1994 was common (39.0%), and multivariate analysi s showed that the greatest number of primary care visits occurred with mult iple drug use (greater than or equal to5 drugs over 1 y). CONCLUSIONS: This study shows an extensive multiple drug use among elderly people living at home. Whether this multiple drug use per se is harmful to the patients or not could not be evaluated in this study. Further focused i nvestigations are needed to assess the effect of multiple drug use in an el derly population.