Exploring the relationship between fall risk-increasing drugs and fall-related fractures.

BACKGROUND

Hospital admissions due to fall-related fractures are a major problem in the aging population. Several risk factors have been identified, including drug use. Most studies often retrieved prescription-only drugs from national databases. These are associated with some limitations as they do not always reliably reproduce the complete patient's active drug list.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the association between the number of FRIDs intake identified by a standardised medication reconciliation process and a fall-related fracture leading to a hospital admission in older adults.

SETTING

The first cohort has been recruited from one traumatology ward of a tertiary teaching hospital in Belgium and the second cohort has been recruited from 11 community pharmacies in Belgium.

METHOD: A prospective study with two individually matched cohorts was performed. Adult patients (≥75 years) admitted with an injury due to a fall were included in the first cohort (faller group). The second cohort consisted of patients who did not suffer from a fall within the last 6 months (non-faller group). Matching was performed for age, gender, place of residence and use of a walking aid. In both groups, clinical pharmacists and undergraduate pharmacy students obtained the medication history, using a standardised approach. A list of drugs considered to increase the risk of falling was created. It included cardiovascular drugs and drugs acting on the nervous system. A linear mixed model was used to compare the number of fall risk-increasing drugs between fallers and non-fallers.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The number of fall risk-increasing drugs in a faller versus a non-faller group.

RESULTS

Sixty-one patients were matched with 121 non-fallers. Patients received on average 3.1 ± 2.1 and 3.2 ± 1.8 fall risk-increasing drugs in the faller and in the non-faller group, respectively. The mean number of fall risk-increasing drugs was comparable in both groups (p = 0.844), even after adjusting for alcohol consumption, fear of falling, vision and foot problems (p = 0.721).

CONCLUSION

In a sample of hospitalised patients admitted for a fall-related injury, no significant difference in the number of fall risk-increasing drugs versus that of an outpatient group of non-fallers was found.