Health

Pharmacy records don't tell the whole story

NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted June 21, 2004

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Having elderly patients bring in all their medications rather than relying on medical records can be a better way to determine what drugs they are actually taking, according to a study in the April issue of The Gerontologist.

Researchers at Penn State University in State College asked patients, mostly women ages 65 to 91, to "brown bag" their medications. The drugs in the sack were more numerous than those included in pharmacy records.

Authors of the paper speculated that the discrepancy was a result of patients receiving drug samples, sharing medications with their friends or taking less of the drug in a single dose in order to stretch it out.

"Using the brown bag method of self-reporting could help doctors more accurately monitor medication compliance, guard against polypharmacy and prevent drug interactions," said Grace Caskie, PhD, lead author and a research associate at the Penn State Gerontology Center.

Researchers expressed significant concern about this phenomena because patients whose self-reporting least matched medications noted in their records also tended to be in poorer health.

Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2004/06/21/hlbf0621.htm.

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