Effect of Drug-Drug Interactions by Association Rule Discovery among the Elderly

Objective: With the decline of the bodily function, the elderly increased polypharmacy frequency. The results lead to the danger for duplicate drug and drug interactions (DDIs). This study aims to analyze the effect of DDIs of the elderly in Taiwan.

Methods: The association rules and hypothesis testing technology were proposed to analyze the impact of drug-drug interactions, using the real cases in Taiwan Teaching Hospital.

Results: From the analysis, shown three results. Firstly, four out of 100 patients have the threat of drug interactions. Secondly, the proportion of drug-drug interactions is highest in the cardiovascular medicine. Thirdly, the number of drug-drug interaction for elderly is 2.01 times of the other people.

Conclusion: I suggested that the patient should be reminded to describe their medications for medical staffs spontaneously to help doctors for reducing the risk of drug interactions and drug wastage.