Characterization of the adverse drug reactions in elder people. Matanzas. 2005-2009

Abstract

The current investigation characterized the notifications of adverse drug reactions suspicions in people older than 60 years old, received in the Provincial Coordinating Unit of Pharmaco-surveillance, since January 1st 2005 until December 31st 2009. The objectives of the research were identifying the pharmacologic groups that produced adverse drug reactions and also the most compromised drugs, classifying the adverse reactions according to their seriousness, the producing mechanism, the organ system affected and the imputing level. It was a cross-sectional, descriptive study, where we used 521 notifications of adverse drug reactions stored in the data base of the Unit. The most important results of the research showed that the most representative pharmacologic groups were the antibacterial, the antihypertensive, the anti-inflammatory and the non-opioid analgesic ones; the most frequent drugs were the captopril, the ciprofloxacin and the nifedipine; the moderated reactions showed the highest percent, above the low ones and the serious ones; there it was a predomination of the Type A production mechanism; the most affected organ system was the skin and its related, and the probable imputing level was the one found in a higher percent.