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Use of Renally Inappropriate Medications in Older Veterans: A National Study.

ABSTRACT: To determine how many ambulatory older adults with chronic kidney disease receive medications that are contraindicated or dosed excessively given their level of renal function.Cross-sectional retrospective study.U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) clinics.Individuals aged 65 and older with a creatinine clearance (CrCl) of 15 to 49 mL/min (N = 83,850; mean age 80; 96% male).Forty medications that require dose adjustment or are contraindicated in people with impaired renal function were examined. Medication use and CrCl (calculated using the Cockroft-Gault equation) were assessed using VA pharmacy, laboratory, and other data sources as of October 2007.Thirteen percent of older veterans with a CrCl of 30 to 49 mL/min and 32% of those with a CrCl of 15 to 29 mL/min received one or more drugs that were contraindicated or prescribed at an excessive dose given the individual's level of renal function. The strongest risk factor for renally inappropriate prescribing was number of medications used; the risk of receiving renally inappropriate medications was 5.5 times as high (95% confidence interval = 5.1-5.9) in older adults taking 10 or more medications as in those taking one to three medications. Ranitidine, allopurinol, and metformin together accounted for 76% of renally misprescribed medications in individuals with a CrCl of 30 to 49 mL/min. Glyburide, ranitidine, gemfibrozil, carvedilol, and allopurinol accounted for 47% of renally misprescribed drugs for individuals with a CrCl of 15 to 29 mL/min.Inappropriate prescribing of renally cleared medications is common in ambulatory older veterans, with only a few medications accounting for most of these prescribing problems.

SUBMITTER: Chang F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4733653 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Use of Renally Inappropriate Medications in Older Veterans: A National Study.

Chang Flora F O'Hare Ann M AM Miao Yinghui Y Steinman Michael A MA

Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 20151027 11

<h4>Objectives</h4>To determine how many ambulatory older adults with chronic kidney disease receive medications that are contraindicated or dosed excessively given their level of renal function.<h4>Design</h4>Cross-sectional retrospective study.<h4>Setting</h4>U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) clinics.<h4>Participants</h4>Individuals aged 65 and older with a creatinine clearance (CrCl) of 15 to 49 mL/min (N = 83,850; mean age 80; 96% male).<h4>Measurements</h4>Forty medications that requ ...[more]

PMID: 26503124

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Project description:BackgroundCurrently, far too many older adults consume inappropriate prescriptions, which increase the risk of adverse drug reactions and unnecessary hospitalizations. A health education program directly informing patients of prescription risks may promote inappropriate prescription discontinuation in chronic benzodiazepine users.Methods/designThis is a cluster randomized controlled trial using a two-arm parallel-design. A total of 250 older chronic benzodiazepine users recruited from community pharmacies in the greater Montreal area will be studied with informed consent. A participating pharmacy with recruited participants represents a cluster, the unit of randomization. For every four pharmacies recruited, a simple 2:2 randomization is used to allocate clusters into intervention and control arms. Participants will be followed for 1 year. Within the intervention clusters, participants will receive a novel educational intervention detailing risks and safe alternatives to their current potentially inappropriate medication, while the control group will be wait-listed for the intervention for 6 months and receive usual care during that time period. The primary outcome is the rate of change in benzodiazepine use at 6 months. Secondary outcomes are changes in risk perception, self-efficacy for discontinuing benzodiazepines, and activation of patients initiating discussions with their physician or pharmacist about safer prescribing practices. An intention-to-treat analysis will be followed.The rate of change of benzodiazepine use will be compared between intervention and control groups at the individual level at the 6-month follow-up. Risk differences between the control and experimental groups will be calculated, and the robust variance estimator will be used to estimate the associated 95% confidence interval (CI). As a sensitivity analysis (and/or if any confounders are unbalanced between the groups), we will estimate the risk difference for the intervention via a marginal model estimated via generalized estimating equations with an exchangeable correlation structure.DiscussionTargeting consumers directly as catalysts for engaging physicians and pharmacists in collaborative discontinuation of benzodiazepine drugs is a novel approach to reduce inappropriate prescriptions. By directly empowering chronic users with knowledge about risks, we hope to imitate the success of individually targeted anti-smoking campaigns.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01148186.

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Use of Renally Inappropriate Medications in Older Veterans: A National Study.

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Use of Renally Inappropriate Medications in Older Veterans: A National Study.

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