2Gazi University Faculty of Medicine, Geriatrics, Ankara, Turkey DOI : 10.29400/tjgeri.2024.407 Introduction: Screening Tool of Older Person"s Prescriptions (STOPP) / Screening Tool to Alert Doctors to the Right Treatment (START) is among the most forthcoming lists developed to detect potentially inappropriate prescribing, which consists of potentially inappropriate medications and potential prescription omissions. Turkish Inappropriate Medication Use in the Elderly (TIME) was developed based on STOPP/START version 2 for the eastern European population. We aimed to compare the effectiveness of STOPP/ START and TIME in detecting potentially inappropriate prescribing, potentially inappropriate medications, and potential prescribing omissions.
Materials and methods: Eighty-five patients who presented to Gazi University Hospital"s Geriatrics Outpatient Clinic between November 2020 and March 2022 were included in this study. The patients" detailed clinical records were evaluated according to TIME and STOPP/START. The numbers of potentially inappropriate prescribing, potentially inappropriate medications, and potential prescribing omissions were determined.
Results: Median number of potentially inappropriate prescribing detected according to TIME was significantly higher than according to STOPP/START (6 [IQR 4-7] vs. 3 [IQR 2-5], p<0.001). However, no significant difference was observed in the number of potentially inappropriate medications detected. The number of patients meeting potentially inappropriate prescribing criteria according to the TIME was significantly higher than START, which was attributable primarily to the disparity in the vaccination category.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that TIME is more successful in detecting potentially inappropriate prescribing than STOPP/START in Turkish geriatric patients. This success was probably due to the better performance of TIME in detecting potential prescribing omissions. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings.
Keywords : Potentially Inappropriate Medication List; Polypharmacy; Drug Therapy; Geriatric Assessment; Drug Interactions