Prevalence of Potentially Inappropriate Medication use in older drivers
DOI: 10.1186/s12877-019-1287-8
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Summary
This study investigates the prevalence and correlates of Potentially Inappropriate Medication (PIM) use among community-dwelling older drivers, addressing a gap in literature regarding how medication safety intersects with driving performance. While PIM use has been extensively studied in clinical and institutional settings, little was known about its magnitude in the active driver population, despite evidence linking certain medications to increased crash risk. The research aimed to quantify PIM prevalence using the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) 2015 Beers Criteria and identify demographic and clinical factors associated with its use. The analysis utilized baseline data from the Longitudinal Research on Aging Drivers (LongROAD) study, a multisite prospective cohort involving 2,949 active drivers aged 65–79 recruited from five U.S. locations. Medication data were collected via a “brown-bag” review, where participants presented all prescribed and over-the-counter medications for coding using the American Hospital Formulary Service classification system. The researchers applied the 2015 AGS Beers Criteria to identify PIMs that should generally be avoided, excluding proton-pump inhibitors and medications requiring specific clinical context due to insufficient data. Multivariable logistic regression was employed to calculate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for PIM use based on participant characteristics, including age, sex, race, frailty, and urbanicity. The results indicated that 18.5% of older drivers used at least one PIM. The most frequently used PIM categories were benzodiazepines (16.6% of total PIMs), nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics (15.2%), antidepressants (15.2%), and first-generation antihistamines (10.5%). PIM use was strongly associated with polypharmacy; compared to drivers taking four or fewer medications, those taking 12 or more had an adjusted OR of 8.01 for PIM use. Significant demographic risk factors included female sex (OR 2.05), White race (compared to Black and Asian groups), and residence in urban areas (OR 1.61 compared to rural areas). Frailty status did not show a statistically significant association with PIM use in this sample. The findings highlight that nearly one in five older drivers uses medications known to impair driving ability and increase crash risk, particularly sedatives and antihistamines. The study concludes that PIM use is prevalent and concentrated among specific demographic groups, notably women and urban residents. Given the established link between these medications and driving impairment, the authors suggest that implementing evidence-based interventions, such as computer-based alerts and prescription restrictions, could yield significant benefits for both health outcomes and traffic safety in the aging population.
Key finding
Approximately 18.5% of older drivers used potentially inappropriate medications, with prevalence significantly increasing with the total number of medications taken and being higher among female, white, and urban-dwelling drivers.
Methodology
dataset
Sample size: 2949
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via author_sweep_intake on 2026-05-28.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | author_sweep | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-28 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-28 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: observational prevalence