Physicians' questions concerning drug use among older patients: experience from Norwegian drug information centres (RELIS) in the period 2010-2015.
Questions from physicians to regional medicines information and pharmacovigilance centres in Norway (RELIS) concerning older patients were described. Question-answer pairs (QAPs) from the RELIS database indexed with the category "older", and concerning individual patients from the period 01 Jan 2010 to 31 Dec 2015, were analysed. Two-hundred and eight QAPs categorized with "older" were retrieved from a total of 16 710 in the study period, and 122 of 208 QAPs fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The most common categories of drugs in question (n = 228) according to the ATC system were N: Nervous system (30.3%) and C: Cardiovascular system (23.7%). Questions from physicians (n = 122) were most frequently about adverse effects (41.8%) and treatment (39.3%). The majority of questions to RELIS concerning older patients came from general practice (GP). The results suggest drug information efforts to GPs in care of older patients with regard to psychopharmacology and cardiovascular pharmacology.
['Schjøtt|Jan|J|http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2664-5005']
D000368:Aged D016208:Databases, Factual D004346:Drug Information Services D005260:Female D058005:General Practitioners D006801:Humans D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D009664:Norway D060735:Pharmacovigilance D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' D055553:Prescription Drugs
Drugs Older patients Drug information Education