National estimates of medication use in nursing homes: findings from the 1997 medicare current beneficiary survey and the 1996 medical expenditure survey
UMass Chan Affiliations
Meyers Primary Care InstituteDepartment of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2005-03-04Keywords
*Activities of Daily LivingAged
Aged, 80 and over
Cross-Sectional Studies
Drug Utilization Review
Female
*Health Status
Humans
Long-Term Care
Male
Medicare
Middle Aged
Nursing Homes
United States
Health Services Research
Primary Care
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
OBJECTIVES: To provide the first nationwide estimates of medication use in nursing homes (NHs) and to introduce a new data set for examining drug use in long-term care facilities. DESIGN: Cross-sectional comparison. SETTING: NH medication files from two nationally representative data sets, the 1997 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) and the 1996 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Nursing Home Component (MEPS-NHC). PARTICIPANTS: NH residents in the MCBS (n=929, weighted n=2.0 million) and MEPS-NHC (n=5,899, weighted n=3.1 million). MEASUREMENTS: Estimates include characteristics of facilities and residents, average number of drugs used per person per month, and the prevalence and duration of use by select therapeutic drug classes. RESULTS: NH residents received, on average, seven to eight medications each month (7.6 MCBS, 7.2 MEPS-NHC). About one-third of residents had monthly drug regimens of nine or more medications (31.8% MCBS, 32.4% MEPS-NHC). The most commonly used medications in NHs, in descending order, were analgesics and antipyretics, gastrointestinal agents, electrolytic and caloric preparations, central nervous system agents, anti-infective agents, and cardiovascular agents. CONCLUSION: These estimates serve as examples of the first national benchmarks of prescribing patterns in NHs. This study highlights the usefulness of the MCBS as an important new resource for examining medication use in NHs.Source
J Am Geriatr Soc. 2005 Mar;53(3):438-43. Link to article on publisher's siteDOI
10.1111/j.1532-5415.2005.53161.xPermanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/36967PubMed ID
15743286Related Resources
Link to Article in PubMedae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1111/j.1532-5415.2005.53161.x