ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2021
Prescription Habits Related to Chronic Pathologies of Elderly People in Primary Care in the Western Part of Romania: Current Practices, International Recommendations, and Future Perspectives Regarding the Overuse and Misuse of Medicines.
Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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7 citing papers in PubMed, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- Polypharmacy and Drug-Drug Interactions in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Narrative Clinical Review.Pharmaceutics · 2026Review
- Renal Risk Awareness and Use Patterns of NSAIDs and Antibiotics in Primary Care Patients from North-Eastern Romania.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Article
- Clinical pharmacists and drug-related problem management in a South African hospital.Health SA = SA Gesondheid · 2026Article
- Drug utilization study of antiparkinsonian medication in Romania during 25 years.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- Under-Prescription of Drugs in the Elderly Population of Western Romania: An Analysis Based on STOPP/START Version 2 Criteria.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Prevalence and Determinants of Self-Medication Practices among Cardiovascular Patients from Béja, North West Tunisia: A Community-Pharmacy-Based Survey.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Prevalence and Risk Factors Associated with Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing According to STOPP-2 Criteria among Discharged Older Patients-An Observational Retrospective Study.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The European Commission's 2019 report regarding the state of health profiles highlighted the fact that Romania is among the countries with the lowest life expectancy in the European Union. Therefore, the objectives of the present study were to assess the current prescription habits of general physicians in Romania related to medicines taken by the elderly population for chronic conditions in both urban and rural setting and to discuss/compare these practices with the current international recommendations for the elderly (American-Beers 2019 criteria and European-STOPP/START v.2, 2015 criteria). A total of 2790 electronic prescriptions for chronic pathologies collected from 18 community pharmacies in the western part of Romania (urban and rural zones) were included. All medicines had been prescribed by general physicians. We identified the following situations of medicine overuse: 15% of the analyzed prescriptions involved the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for >2 weeks, 12% involved the use of a proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) for >8 weeks, theophylline was the bronchodilator used as a monotherapy in 3.17% of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease cases, and zopiclone was the hypnotic drug of choice for 2.31% of cases. Regarding the misuse of medicines, 2.33% of analyzed prescriptions contained an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor and an angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB) for patients with renal failure in addition to vitamin K antagonists (AVKs) and NSAIDs in 0.43% of cases. Prescriptions for COX2 NSAIDs for periods longer than 2 weeks for patients with cardiovascular disorders accounted for 1.33% of prescriptions, and trihexyphenidyl was used as a monotherapy for patients with Parkinson's disease in 0.18% of cases. From the included medical prescriptions, 32.40% (the major percent of 2383 prescriptions) had two potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). Rural zones were found to be risk factor for PIMs. Decreasing the chronic prescription of NSAIDs and PPIs, discontinuing the use of hypnotic drugs, and avoiding potentially harmful drug-drug associations will have long term beneficial effects for Romanian elderly patients.
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