Author(s): Aritra Kumar Bose, Anusha CP and Kritanjali Sahu

Abstract: Background: Pain is one of the most common complaints which affects 20% of the population and accounts for 20% of the physician visits worldwide. A variety of drugs are available for the treatment of pain. Due to its acute onset and severity, analgesics are often taken by patients not under medical advice to get pain relief. The current study is planned to access the prevalence and predictors of the same.Objectives1) To access the pattern of analgesic use among elderly.2) To evaluate the factors affecting use of analgesics among elderly.Methods: The study was a cross-sectional study conducted at a randomly selected pharmacy situated in the vicinity of an urban slum area. After obtaining permission from institutional ethical committee and pharmacy owners the study was started. One thousand customers fitting into inclusion criteria (age more than 60 years & buying any class of analgesics) who came to buy drugs from the pharmacy were enrolled for the present study by convenient sampling. The study was conducted over 1 month that is from January 2022 to February 2022. The subjects who consented to participate were interviewed using pretested questionnaire after obtaining informed consent. Statistical analysis of the data was done using PSPP open-source software.Results: Chronic pain was the most commonly (61.9%) reported type of pain and majority (30.9%) of the study subjects reported that they experience pain almost daily without analgesics.29% had a confirmed diagnosis of the cause of pain. Knee pain (36%) followed by back pain (23%), Headache (21%) were the predominant reasons for taking analgesics. Only 31% patients who came for buying painkillers had a valid prescription in possession and 79% had never visited a medical practitioner for pain. The results show that for every unit decrease in age and per capita income the odds for buying medicine without prescription is 2.896 times and 3.578 times respectively.Conclusion: The survey points out to the issue and scale of over the counter analgesic use among the population of metropolitan city.

DOI: 10.33545/comed.2022.v5.i3a.239