Korean J Clin Pharm.  2015 Sep;25(3):145-150. 10.0000/kjcp.2015.25.3.145.

Prescribing Patterns of Pain Medication in Hospitalized Elderly Patients with Non-Cancer Pain

• Nam KN
• Choi EO
• Kim BH
• Seong SR
• Heo YJ
• Lee KJ
• Lee YJ

• KMID: 2226405
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.0000/kjcp.2015.25.3.145

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
Pain is very common in the elderly, so there is a high prevalence of analgesic use among this population. The purpose of this study was to assess patterns of analgesic use and evaluate factors associated with analgesic use in elderly patients. METHOD: The subjects of this study were patients over 65 years old hospitalized in a teaching hospital located in Chuncheon-si, Korea between January 1, 2014 and March 31, 2014. Data collection regarding analgesic prescriptions and baseline characteristics was conducted using computerized hospital database by medical information team. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors related to analgesic use.
RESULTS
A total of 2,394 patients were finally included. Among these patients, 700 (29.2%) took analgesics; 521 (74.4%) out of these 700 patients were received opioid analgesics and 179 (25.6%) were received only non-opioid analgesics. The most frequently prescribed opioid analgesic was pethidine (45.7%), and the most frequently prescribed non-opioid analgesic was acetaminophen (44.1%). Fracture was associated with increased odds of opioid analgesic prescriptions (OR = 2.766, 95% CI = 2.019-3.790, p < 0.001) and any analgesic prescriptions (OR = 2.394, 95% CI = 1.766-3.244, p < 0.001). Stroke or cerebral infarction was associated with decreased odds of opioid analgesic prescriptions (OR = 0.636, 95% CI = 0.471-0.858, p = 0.003).
CONCLUSION
A significant proportion of hospitalized elderly patients use analgesics. Health care professionals should consider factors associated with analgesic use in this population to improve pain management.

Keyword

pain; analgesics; opioids; elderly; management

MeSH Terms

Acetaminophen
Aged*
Analgesics
Analgesics, Opioid
Cerebral Infarction
Data Collection
Delivery of Health Care
Gangwon-do
Hospitals, Teaching
Humans
Korea
Logistic Models
Meperidine
Pain Management
Prescriptions
Prevalence
Stroke
Acetaminophen
Analgesics
Analgesics, Opioid
Meperidine