WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Sarmad S. Mahdi*, Muna A. Kahlifa and Mohammed A. Ibraheem

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Aging is often associated with multimorbidity, polypharmacy and many side effects. Beers Criteria is the best known and most commonly used to identify potentially impropriate medicines in the elderly. Objectives: To assess the knowledge of Iraqi physicians about beers criteria and appropriate prescribing of medications for the elderly. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 20 primary health care centers on both sides of Baghdad (Al-Karkh and Al-Russafa), included 140 physicians. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire that addressed ten instances of potentially inappropriate prescribing in the form of either a dose reduction or a discontinuation of the targeted medication. Respondents were classified to poor (score >5), average (score 5–6), and good (score 7–10). Chi-square was used to determine the level of significance between the Beer score and the demographical characteristics of the sample. Results: Female physicians constituted 95 (67.8%) of the studied sample. More than half 80 (57.2 %) of the physicians in primary health care centers had board certificates. More than half 78 (55.7 %) of physicians felt confident in prescribing for the elderly. Only 18 (12.9%) knew what is Beer’s criteria. About one quarter 32(23.2%) had a good Beer’ criteria score. The most commonly prescribed potentially inappropriate medicines identified in the study included NSAIDs like naproxen, diclofenac, and indomethacin. The study showed a significant association between high scores of Beer’s criteria and the medical degree (p-value

[Full Text Article] [Download Certificate]