The majority of elderly people are on large number of medicines (typically five or more), some of which may be potentially inappropriate. There are several tools available to help identify these potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). One of these tools is the STOPP/START criteria which were developed in University College Cork. This tool has been widely used to identify potentially inappropriate prescriptions (PIPs) and potentially prescribing omissions (PPOs) in many different healthcare settings in several different countries. It has recently (in 2014) been updated. This project plans to investigate the frequency of these PIPs and PPOs in three different healthcare settings with differing levels of specialist and general physician input using the newly updated STOPP/START criteria. The findings will also be compared with those from earlier studies in different healthcare settings.
