Pharmacoepidemiological studies in geriatric population

Abstract

Pharmacoepidemiology is ''the study of the utilization, effects and adverse effects of drugs that are authorised by health authorities in large populations and made available for human health, in a manner that aims to further improve the principles of rational drug use and cost-effectiveness, thereby further improving health-related outcomes''. This drug-oriented definition has been recently updated to Real-World Evidence (RWE), as the use of drugs, biological products and medical devices, and the investigation of their side effects in real life conditions in very large populations, and the definition is still being updated. It is estimated that the geriatric population will reach approximately to 1 billion by 2032. Multiple drug use due to multiple co-morbidities, increased adverse drug reactions and hospitalizations are the main problems related to drug utilization in geriatric population. Special populations are not included in randomized clinical trials to keep the cohort as homogeneous as possible. This results in limited information on the use of new drugs in the geriatric population after marketing. In this context, the importance and priority of pharmacoepidemiological studies that can be performed on large populations using very specific databases and records without any intervention regarding drug use are increasing. More geriatric pharmacoepidemiological studies should be conducted for the safe use of drugs in geriatric population.