Exploring the Relationship Between Fall Risk-increasing Drugs and Fall-related Fractures

Background: Hospital admissions due to fall-related fractures are a major problem in the aging population. Several risk factors have been identified, including drug use. Most studies often retrieved prescription-only drugs from national databases. These are associated with some limitations as they do not always reliably reproduce the complete patient's active drug list.

Objective: To evaluate the association between the number of FRIDs intake identified by a standardised medication reconciliation process and a fall-related fracture leading to a hospital admission in older adults.

Setting: The first cohort has been recruited from one traumatology ward of a tertiary teaching hospital in Belgium and the second cohort has been recruited from 11 community pharmacies in Belgium.

Method: A prospective study with two individually matched cohorts was performed. Adult patients (≥75 years) admitted with an injury due to a fall were included in the first cohort (faller group). The second cohort consisted of patients who did not suffer from a fall within the last 6 months (non-faller group). Matching was performed for age, gender, place of residence and use of a walking aid. In both groups, clinical pharmacists and undergraduate pharmacy students obtained the medication history, using a standardised approach. A list of drugs considered to increase the risk of falling was created. It included cardiovascular drugs and drugs acting on the nervous system. A linear mixed model was used to compare the number of fall risk-increasing drugs between fallers and non-fallers.

Main Outcome Measure: The number of fall risk-increasing drugs in a faller versus a non-faller group.

Results: Sixty-one patients were matched with 121 non-fallers. Patients received on average 3.1 ± 2.1 and 3.2 ± 1.8 fall risk-increasing drugs in the faller and in the non-faller group, respectively. The mean number of fall risk-increasing drugs was comparable in both groups (p = 0.844), even after adjusting for alcohol consumption, fear of falling, vision and foot problems (p = 0.721).

Conclusion: In a sample of hospitalised patients admitted for a fall-related injury, no significant difference in the number of fall risk-increasing drugs versus that of an outpatient group of non-fallers was found.