Falls represent an important public health issue with elderly people, aged 65 or more. As falls often lead to injuries and the associated reduced quality of life, disabilities and higher mortality rate, risk factors need to be identified in a timely manner. Drugs are one of the important risk factors for falls and there are quite a number of active ingredients known to increase this risk. The purpose of this phramacoepidemiological study was to evaluate the prevalence and characteristics of fall risk increasing drugs among outpatients aged 65 or more in Slovenia in 2018. The data on dispensedprescriptions was obtained from anonymised records of the Health insurance institute of Slovenia regarding prescription drugs dispensed in 2018. The list of drugs that increase the risk of falls was formed on the basis of meta-analyses, which were published separately for cardiovascular drugs, psychotropic drugs and other drugs. The number of elderly people with at least one prescription in 2018 was 395,216, representing 91.1 % of the total Slovenian population of elderly people. They received 837,201 (9.7 %) prescriptions with at least one fall risk increasing drug. The total number of elderly people with fall risk increasing drugs was 165,224, representing more than 40 % of the study population. The prevalence was higher in women and older age groups. Namely, the gender prevalence was 44.5 % among women and 30.3 % among men, while the age group prevalence was 29.0 % for ages 65–74, 44.0 % for ages 75–84 and 60.4 % for ages 85 and more. Among the individual groups of fall risk increasing drugs, the prevalence was as follows: cardiovascular drugs (14.1 %), psychotropic drugs (28.8 %) and other drugs (5.2 %). Among the cardiovascular drugs, furosemide and torasemide were the only ones prescribed, and as such, also the most common. The most commonly prescribed psychotropic drugs were quetiapine, alprazolam, bromazepam, escitalopram and sertraline. The most commonly prescribed active substancesamong other drugs were pregabalin, levetiracetam, carbamazepine, lamotrigine and valproic acid. Although withdrawal of such medicines is an effective measure to prevent falls, all benefits and risks to the individual patient must be taken into account in order to ensure effective and safe treatment and thus a better quality of life for older adults.
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