The perspective of Kedah community pharmacists regarding potentially inappropriate geriatric medications / Irham Bokhari

This research's objectives are to investigate the level of knowledge on PIMs/PIPs among the community pharmacists and to evaluate the use of validated screening tools for PIMs/PIPs (STOPP and Beers criteria) in community pharmacy practice. The designed and approved questionnaire will be distributed to the respondent by hands, mail or using the internet. The respondent will be informed first about this project and will be asked to participate. Their responds will be collected by hands, mail or using the internet. The final score from the results will be computed. The result showed that most of the drugs Beers criteria were dispensed with varying level of comfortable. Geriatric Attitude Scale also assessed and showed positive score 47.21. Familiarity, factors, preferred sources of information and measures that could used to reduce PIMs were also assessed. The respondents are most familiar with physiological changes among the elderly, and chose the lack of knowledge in PIM as a major factor. Internet and websites chosen as the most preferred source of information and by reviewing patient's medication measure, the PIM can be reduced. As a conclusion, community pharmacists in Kedah generally have positive attitudes towards geriatric but have lack of knowledge about the geriatric pharmacy.