Long‐term use of acid suppression started inappropriately during hospitalization

Abstract

Background : Practitioners routinely misuse acid suppression medications on general medical floors and inappropriately continue the drug at discharge. Aims : To: (i) retrospectively study the appropriateness of acid suppression use on the general medical floors; (ii) characterize the patient population discharged on unnecessary acid suppression and (iii) evaluate whether patients discharged on unnecessary acid suppression continue the medicine long term. Methods : Retrospective chart review of general medical patients admitted to an in‐patient teaching service over 6 consecutive months. Results : About 60% of patients lacked an indication for initiation of acid suppression and 34% of these patients were discharged on the medicine. The only independent predictor of continuation of acid suppression at discharge was longer length of stay. Multivariate analysis did not identify a characteristic distinguishing those patients discharged inappropriately on acid suppression. At 3 and 6 months of follow‐up, 80% and 50% of patients, respectively, remained on acid suppression therapy without an appropriate indication. Conclusions : Our data verifies that practitioners routinely start general medical in‐patients on acid suppression without an appropriate indication. Many of these prescriptions are continued at discharge for no apparent reason, leading to their long‐term misuse.