Patient-, medication- and environment-related factors affecting medication discrepancies in older patients

Abstract

Background As patients move across different clinical settings, medication changes are likely to occur. Aim To identify patient-, medication- and environment-related factors associated with unintentional medication discrepancies in older patients, who were admitted to hospital via an emergency department and who had a subacute care admission at some point following hospital admission. Methods A retrospective clinical audit was undertaken using a stratified random sampling approach over a 14-month period. Medical records of patients aged 65 years or over were collected from five hospitals. Findings Data were collected from 426 older patients. Of these patients, 169 (39.7%) had at least one un..