부산대학교 도서관

Objectives: To investigate the degree of drug-drug interaction among elderly outpatients in our hospital clinics. This should increase the vigilance of medical staffs when dispensing drugs for elderly outpatients and ensure safe drug use. Methods: We retrospectively collected prescription information from elderly outpatients during January to June 2011. Through the in-house drug-drug interaction information system, Micromedex, and MIMS drug interaction query system, we filtered out the records of primary and secondary drug interactions. Results: Elderly outpatients were frequently diagnosed with chronic diseases. The average number of drugs per outpatient prescription was 4.8, and up to 14 drugs in one prescription. A total of 21.7% of outpatients were prescribed more than 5 kinds of drugs. More importantly, 3.7% of the outpatient prescriptions had serious drug interactions. The rates of moderate and mild drug-drug interaction were 55.6% and 31.2%, and 9.5% of the prescriptions were marked use with caution. Conclusion: Outpatient drug-drug interaction information systems could provide prescribing suggestions for physicians to avoid inappropriate drug combinations and adverse reactions due to drug interactions for elderly patients.