Background and Importance Falls are a major public health issue, often resulting from interacting risks, being fall-risk-increasing drugs (FRIDs) use one of the prominent risk factors. Falls carry a high risk of functional dependence, hospitalisation, institutionalisation and mortality. STOPP falls was built through a Delphi process of experts and resulted in a list of FRIDs.¹ Consensus was reached for anticholinergics, diuretics, alpha-blockers used as antihypertensives, opioids, antidepressants, antipsychotics, antiepileptics, benzodiazepines and benzodiazepine-related drugs, centrally-acting antihypertensives, alpha-blockers for prostate hyperplasia, antihistamines and vasodilators used in cardiac diseases and overactive bladder and urge incontinence.

Aim and Objectives Characterise FRIDs prescription profile in fall-caused admissions in an Orthopaedics service.

Material and Methods All patients aged 65 years or over, admitted to Orthopaedics service, with a diagnosis of fracture due to a fall between 1 January 2023 and 30 June 2023 were included. Sociodemographic data and medication history were obtained using electronic medical record.

Results The study included 154 patients, mostly women (78%). The average age was 83 years. The majority of the patients (49%) used to take 5–9 medications, 41% 0–4 medications and 10% more than 10 medications. Were found 222 FRIDs prescriptions, which corresponds to 1.44 FRIDs prescribed/patient. The most common FRIDs prescribed were antidepressants (25%), diuretics (21%) and benzodiazepines (21%).

Conclusion and Relevance Besides the number of FRIDs/patient is lower than in other studies (1.44vs2.6),^2,3 the most common prescribed drug classes are much the same. Regarding age and gender, results are similar to the Spanish study. A limitation is that only data about FRIDs’ number was assessed, regardless of the defined daily dosage of each drug. This later hypothesis could have delivered better understanding of whether drug dosage affects fall risk. It is important to promote FRIDs desprescription. Therefore, the upfront use and dissemination of desprescribing tools as STOPFalls among healthcare professionals should be encouraged alongside with a multifactorial strategy to reduce falls.

References and/or Acknowledgements 1. Seppala LJ, et al. STOPPFall: a Delphi study by the EuGMS task and finish group on fall-risk-increasing drugs. Age and Ageing. 2021;4:1189–1199.

2. Correa-Pérez A, et al. PS-050|Prevalence of polypharmacy and fall risk increased drugs at discharge in fall related hipfracture elderly patients. European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy. 2017;24:A249.

3. Milos V, et al. Fall risk-increasing drugs andfalls: a cross-sectional study among elderly patients in primary care. BMCGeriatrics. 2012;14:40.

Conflict of Interest No conflict of interest.