Introduction:

Aging not only promotes molecular and cellular damage with progressive deterioration of body functions, but this process transcends treatments and predisposes to potentially inappropriate prescriptions and polypharmacy. This situation complicates the care of the elderly with greater use of health services and drug expenses.

Objective:

To identify possible potentially inappropriate prescriptions and estimate the influence of biomedical factors on polypharmacy in hospitalized elderly people.

Material and Methods:

Quasi-experimental before-after study which collected information on biomedical variables from the medical records of 200 hospitalized patients at the Longevity, Aging and Health Research Center. The STOPP/START criteria were used to identify potentially inappropriate prescriptions. Descriptive and inferential statistical tests were performed (α = 0.05).

Results:

A total of 349 inappropriate STOPP prescriptions and 357 inappropriate START prescriptions were identified upon admission. The section corresponding to the central nervous system contributed 24.8% of the inappropriate STOPP prescriptions and the cardiovascular system revealed 59.9% of the inappropriate START prescriptions. Polypharmacy was present in 43.0% of the elderly and comorbidity was the variable that showed the greatest strength of association with polypharmacy (OR = 8.65; 95% CI: 4.51-16.59), followed by the presence of two or more inappropriate prescriptions according to the STOPP criteria.

Conclusions:

The STOPP/START criteria identify inappropriate prescriptions in the Cuban healthcare context which has a negative impact on polypharmacy in the elderly. The central nervous system and the cardiovascular system showed the highest number of potentially inappropriate prescriptions.

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