بررسي مصرف دارو در سالمندان شهر تهران

Assessment of Drug Usage in Tehran Elderly Population

Methods: 385 elderly individuals were selected and studied in a cross-sectional descriptive study. Using an informative form which contained 32 questions in 2 parts, demographic and specific information, the required data was collected. Data was analyzed using SPSS statistical software, Mann-Whitney, and Chi-Square tests. Findings: Mean age of subjects was 67± 4.33 years. 76.9% were male and 23.1% female. Results showed that 72% of study subjects kept un-used drugs at home. The most important factor to keep drugs at home was drug storage (48.7%). Most stored drugs were analgesics (44.4%). Likewise, 57.7% of persons had self-medication over the previous three months. Furthermore, the most important factors for self-medication were previous prescription of a drug and recurrence of a disease or exacerbation of similar symptoms (25.6%). There was a statistically significant association between self-medication and marital status (p=0.020), educational level (p=0.008) and number of children (p=0.001). Conclusion: This study shows that rate of self-medication among Tehran elderly is less than the rate in general population which has been reported in previous studies, though still higher than developed countries. This problem demands for establishing suitable, efficient solutions and programs