Sedative drug use in the home-dwelling elderly

The elderly use more sedatives than other populations. Reports on the sedative load of drugs and their associations with health items are scarce.

To investigate the prevalence of sedatives and drugs with sedative properties and the associations between those drugs and demographic or health items in the home-dwelling elderly in a cross-sectional community survey.

Information was obtained from 1197 persons (43% men) aged >or=64 years in the Finnish municipality of Lieto in 1998-1999. The brand names of the prescription drugs taken by each interviewee during one week prior to the interview were recorded. The classification created in a previous study, where the drugs used in Finland were divided into 4 groups by their sedative properties, was utilized to determine associations with health items.

A total of 88% (n = 1056) of the participants used some drug. Forty percent (n = 422 persons) of the drug users took sedatives or drugs with sedative properties. The oldest individuals (>or=80 y), women, those with low education, smokers, those with poor self-perceived health, people with dementia and mobility problems, and especially those with depression had an independent association with the simultaneous use of many (>or=2) sedatives or drugs with sedative properties.

In a population of home-dwelling elderly patients, abundant sedative drug use was common and especially associated with high age, female gender, poor basic education, poor health habits (eg, smoking), depression, dementia, or impaired mobility. Users also had poor self-perceived health. The need to further develop the classification will be a major challenge, and the classification needs to be updated every year. More studies are needed in this field.