Prevalence and characteristics of antidepressant drug prescriptions in older Italian patients.

Objective: To evaluate prevalence of antidepressant drugs prescription and related factors in elderly in-patients as well as the agreement between prescription of antidepressants and specific diagnoses requiring these medications.
Method: 34 internal medicine and 4 geriatric wards in Italy participated in the Registro Politerapie SIMI - REPOSI - study during 2008. 1155 in-patients, 65 years or older, were enrolled. Prevalence of antidepressants’ use was calculated at both admission and discharge. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the association between patients’ characteristics (age, gender, Charlson Index, number of drugs, specific diseases, other psychotropic medications) and the prescription of antidepressants.
Results: The number of patients treated with antidepressant medications at hospital admission was 115 (9.9%) and at discharge 119 (10.3%). In multivariate analysis, a higher number of drugs, use of other psychotropic medications and a diagnosis of dementia were independently associated with antidepressants prescription. A specific diagnosis requiring the use of antidepressants was present only in 66 (57.4%) patients at admission and 76 (66.1%) at discharge.
Conclusion: Antidepressants are commonly prescribed in geriatric patients, especially in those receiving multiple drugs, other psychotropic drugs and those affected by dementia. There is an inconsistency between prescription of antidepressants and a specific diagnosis that the hospitalization only sligthly improves.