Abstract:

Objective: Polypharmacy is described as five or more number of simultaneous uses of drugs in the same patient. Polypharmacy is related with adverse drug reactions in patients, medication errors and also associated with an increased risk of hospitalization, as well as pharmacoeconomic aspects leads to an increase in costs. The purpose of this study; to analyze the active ingredients used, to detect the presence of polypharmacy, to determine the effect on duration of hospitalization in a 3rd place health center. Materials and Methods: This descriptive study was performed in a university hospital with 600 beds capacity, to cover date of 1-31 December 2013 from 2165 total patient files. The data used was obtained from the hospital information technology departments with taking necessary permission. In the study, patients' socio-demographic findings, used amounts of active ingredient according to age, the most commonly used active ingredients and the services used these active ingredients, the services most frequently used agents, patients' length of stay, and relationship with polypharmacy were evaluated as numbers and percentages. Results: The average length of stay in hospital per head is 4.88 ± 5.40 days at 2165 patients within one month period. In a total of 10.555 days of hospitalization, 5748 (54.4%) were found to be at least a day, including polypharmacy. Polypharmacy was detected in 1147 (52.97%) patients, and the average number of active drug use is 8.20 ± 3.09. Number of polypharmacy per head was found to be 5.01. Conclusion: We believe that with this study detected the presence of polypharmacy and medication preferences specific to the individual will be improved by rational use of drugs for medical personnel training.

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