Skip Navigation


Age and Ageing Advance Access originally published online on October 1, 2008
Age and Ageing 2008 37(6):673-679; doi:10.1093/ageing/afn197
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
37/6/673    most recent
afn197v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (5)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Gallagher, P.
Right arrow Articles by O’Mahony, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Gallagher, P.
Right arrow Articles by O’Mahony, D.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Persons’ potentially inappropriate Prescriptions): application to acutely ill elderly patients and comparison with Beers’ criteria

Paul Gallagher and Denis O’Mahony

Department of Geriatric Medicine, Cork University Hospital, Wilton, Cork, Ireland

Address correspondence to: Paul Gallagher. Tel: (+353) 21 4922396; Fax: (+353) 21 4922829. Email: pfgallagher77{at}eircom.net Denis O’Mahony. Email: Denis.omahony{at}mailp.hse.ie

Introduction: STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Persons’ potentially inappropriate Prescriptions) is a new, systems-defined medicine review tool. We compared the performance of STOPP to that of established Beers’ criteria in detecting potentially inappropriate medicines (PIMs) and related adverse drug events (ADEs) in older patients presenting for hospital admission.

Methods: we prospectively studied 715 consecutive acute admissions to a university teaching hospital. Diagnoses, reason for admission and concurrent medications were recorded. STOPP and Beers’ criteria were applied. PIMs with clear causal connection or contribution to the principal reason for admission were determined.

Results: median patient age (interquartile range) was 77 (72–82) years. Median number of prescription medicines was 6 (range 0–21). STOPP identified 336 PIMs affecting 247 patients (35%), of whom one-third (n = 82) presented with an associated ADE. Beers’ criteria identified 226 PIMs affecting 177 patients (25%), of whom 43 presented with an associated ADE. STOPP-related PIMs contributed to 11.5% of all admissions. Beers’ criteria-related PIMs contributed to significantly fewer admissions (6%).

Conclusion: STOPP criteria identified a significantly higher proportion of patients requiring hospitalisation as a result of PIM-related adverse events than Beers’ criteria. This finding has significant implications for hospital geriatric practice.

Keywords: inappropriate prescribing, elderly, STOPP, screening tool

Received 5 December 2007; accepted in revised form 27 March 2008.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Age AgeingHome page
P. Gallagher, J.-P. Baeyens, E. Topinkova, P. Madlova, A. Cherubini, B. Gasperini, A. Cruz-Jentoft, B. Montero, P. O. Lang, J.-P. Michel, et al.
Inter-rater reliability of STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Persons' Prescriptions) and START (Screening Tool to Alert doctors to Right Treatment) criteria amongst physicians in six European countries
Age Ageing, September 1, 2009; 38(5): 603 - 606.
[Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 The Annals of PharmacotherapyHome page
C. Ryan, D. O'Mahony, and S. Byrne
Application of STOPP and START Criteria: Interrater Reliability Among Pharmacists
Ann. Pharmacother., July 1, 2009; 43(7): 1239 - 1244.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.