Chronic Psychotropic Drug Use Among Frail Elderly Women Receiving Home Care Services

Stakeholders' views on the use of psychotropic medication in older people: a systematic review

Background

psychotropic medication use has been shown to increase with age and has been associated with increased risk of falls, strokes and mortality. Various guidelines, regulations and tools have been developed to reduce inappropriate prescribing, but this remains high. In order to understand the reasons for this, we aimed to systematically review healthcare professionals’, patients’ and family caregivers’ attitudes towards the use of psychotropic medication in older people.

Methods

a systematic literature search was carried out from inception to September 2020 using PUBMED, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINAHL and hand-searching of reference lists. Included studies investigated stakeholder views on psychotropic in adults over the age of 65. Findings were thematically synthesised.

Results

overall, there was an acceptance of long-term psychotropic medication for older people both living in the community and in residential care. While healthcare professionals were aware of guidelines for the use of benzodiazepines and psychotropic medicines, they identified barriers to following them on individual, team and organisational levels. Alternative non-pharmacological approaches were not always available or accepted by patients.

Conclusion

psychotropic medicine use in older adults remains a complex issue, which needs to be addressed on a broad level. Attitudes of older people and healthcare professionals encourage long-term use. Meanwhile, various internal and external factors act as barriers to the use of non-drug alternatives in this population. In order to reduce overprescribing of psychotropics, there is a need to increase the acceptability and accessibility of alternative interventions in both care homes and the community.

Systemic model of chronic benzodiazepine use among mature adults

OBJECTIVES

Our goal was to build a systemic model of chronic use among community-dwelling mature benzodiazepine (BZD) users. BZDs are commonly prescribed for symptoms of anxiety and/or insomnia despite their documented side effects over time.

METHOD

We conducted in-depth interviews with 23 mature (50 years and over) users, 14 women and 9 men, as well as 9 general practitioners and 11 pharmacists. We chose the grounded theory approach for our analysis.

RESULTS

Results yielded a systemic model of chronic BZD use, illustrating onset and maintenance of use, and taking into account individual life context, intervening conditions (e.g. family and doctor--patient interactions) and structural factors (medicalization, ageism, influence of the media and pharmaceutical industry, etc.). Based on our findings, we suggest that intervention should go beyond medical issues and extend to the individual's perception of aging in the modern society, as well as attitudes of families and health professionals regarding long-term BZD use. Family members should be involved in the weaning process and adoption of new life habits. General practitioners should be better trained regarding geriatric psychosocial issues and offer alternatives to prescribe psychotropic drugs such as cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia. Also, as a society, we should reconsider the highly medicalized stance we take to compensate for age-related losses. The influential role of the pharmaceutical industry in the process is discussed.

CONCLUSION

We conclude that a predominantly biomedical perspective on human development diminishes patient-centered care within a socially contextualized, individual perspective.