STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Person's Prescriptions) and START (Screening Tool to Alert doctors to Right Treatment). Consensus validation.

Abstract

Older people experience more concurrent illnesses, are prescribed more medications and suffer more adverse drug events than younger people. Many drugs predispose older people to adverse events such as falls and cognitive impairment, thus increasing morbidity and health resource utilization. At the same time, older people are often denied potentially beneficial, clinically indicated medications without a valid reason. We aimed to validate a new screening tool of older persons' prescriptions incorporating criteria for potentially inappropriate drugs called STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Persons' Prescriptions) and criteria for potentially appropriate, indicated drugs called START (Screening Tool to Alert doctors to Right, i.e. appropriate, indicated Treatment).