Use of STOPP/ START Criteria to Perform Active Pharmacovigilance in the Elderly

Background: Inappropriate prescription of drugs is common in the elderly and contributes to an increased risk of adverse drug reactions. Several tools have been developed to detect potentially inappropriate prescription but the STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Persons’ potentially inappropriate Prescriptions) and START (Screening Tool to Alert doctors to Right Treatment) criteria resulted better than others to identify medicines that lead to negative outcomes. The purpose of this work was to study the prevalence of Potentially Inappropriate Medicines and Potential Prescribing Omissions in Uruguayan hospitalized elderly patients using these criteria. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in different Services of the University Hospital. STOPP and START criteria were applied to identify inappropriate medicines or omissions. Results: Potentially Inappropriate medicines identified by STOPP represent 21.2% of the total prescriptions (862) and Potential Prescribing Omissions identified by START account for the 5.7%. Conclusions: Using STOPP-START criteria could be a useful tool to improve prescription in the elderly and can contribute to the rational use of medicines in this age group.