INDONESIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY
Vol 30 No 3, 2019

A Study of Psychoactive Medicines and Risk of Falls Among Indonesian Elderly Patients

Fita Rahmawati (Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Sekip Utara, Yogyakarta, Indonesia 55281)
Nasikhatul Mustafidah (Postgraduate Magister of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Sekip Utara, Yogyakarta, Indonesia 55281 Department of Pharmacy RSUD. Dr. Soedono Madiun)
I Dewa Putu Pramantara (Department of Geriatric, RSUP Dr. Sardjito Hospital, Yogyakarta, Indonesia 55281)
Izyan Abdul Wahab (Faculty of Pharmacy, Cyberjaya University College of Medical Sciences, Persiaran Bestari, Cyber 11, 63000 Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia)



Article Info

Publish Date
23 Jul 2019

Abstract

One of the causes of injury to the elderly is due to falls. Falling can be prevented by identifying and controlling risk factors. One risk factor that can be controlled is the use of fall risk medicines including psychoactive. This study aims to identify the association between the use of psychoactive medicine and its characteristic with the risk of falls among the elderly in Indonesia.  The study utilized a case-control study design for a total number of 414 elderly patients, during October until December 2018. Cases were elderly aged 60 years or above with a high risk of falling assessed using the Morse Fall Scale (MFS≥45). Each case was matched with up to two randomly selected controls of the same age who are classified as low to moderate risk of falling (MFS<45). The use of psychoactive medicines was screened from a history of drug use for the past six months. Psychoactive medicine-fall risk associations were estimated via logistic regression. There were 138 cases and 276 controls. The median age of subjects was 66 years old and 54.83% was a woman. Elderly with a high risk of falling had higher psychoactive medicines use when compare with controls (31.16 % vs 21.38 %, p< 0.05). After adjusting for potential confounders, the use of psychoactive medicines was significantly associated with higher fall risk in elderly patients (OR 1.79 95% CI 1.10-2.90). Only the duration of psychoactive medication use over 90 days was significantly associated with a high risk of falling (AOR 3.65 95% CI 1.46-9.14). In elderly patients, the continued use of psychoactive medicines increased the risk of fall. Prescribers need to weigh risk and benefit from the use of psychoactive medicines in the elderly to prevent future fall.

Copyrights © 2019






Journal Info

Abbrev

3

Publisher

Subject

Medicine & Pharmacology

Description

Indonesian Journal of Pharmacy (ISSN-e: 2338-9486, ISSN-p: 2338-9427), formerly Majalah Farmasi Indonesia (ISSN: 0126-1037). The journal had been established in 1972, and online publication was begun in 2008. Since 2012, the journal has been published in English by Faculty of Pharmacy Universitas ...