Prescription of potentially inappropriate medications after an intensive care unit stay for acute respiratory failure

Background Among survivors of critical illness, prescription of potentially inappropriate medications (PIM) at hospital discharge is thought to be an important, modifiable patient safety concern. To date, there are little empirical data evaluating this issue. Research question The objective of this study was to determine the frequency of PIM prescribed to survivors of acute respiratory failure (ARF) at hospital discharge and explore their association with readmissions or death within 90 days of hospital discharge. Study design and methods Prospective multicenter cohort study of ARF survivors admitted to ICUs and discharged home. Prospective of new PIMs with a high-adverse-effect profile (“high impact”) at discharge was the primary exposure. Potential inappropriateness was determined by a structured consensus process using Screening Tool of Older Persons' Prescriptions-Screening Tool to Alert to Right Treatment, Beers’ criteria, and clinical context of prescriptions by a multidisciplinary team. Covariate balancing propensity score was used for the primary analysis. Results Of the 195 Addressing Post Intensive Care Syndrome-01 (APICS-01) patients, 169 (87%) had ≥1 new medications prescribed at discharge, with 154 (91.1%) prescribed with one or more high-impact (HI) medications. Patients were prescribed a median of 5 [3–7] medications, of which 3 [1–4] were HI. Twenty percent of HI medications were potentially inappropriate. Medications with significant central nervous system side-effects were most prescribed potentially inappropriately. Forty-six (30%) patients experienced readmission or death within 90 days of hospital discharge. After adjusting for prespecified covariates, the association between prescription of potentially inappropriate HI medications and the composite primary outcome did not meet the prespecified threshold for statistical significance (risk ratio: 0.54; 0.26–1.13; p = 0.095) or with the constituent endpoints: readmission (risk ratio: 0.57, 0.27–1.11) or death (0.7, 0.05–9.32). Conclusion At hospital discharge, most ARF survivors are prescribed medications with a high-adverse-effect profile and approximately one-fifth are potentially inappropriate. Although prescription of such medications was not associated with 90-day readmissions and mortality, these results highlight an area for additional investigation.