The Association between Antihypertensive Drugs and Falls in Older Adults in Amirkola, Northern Iran

Abstract

Background and Objective: Being familiar with the factors that are effective in causing falls plays an important role in reducing the issues and costs related to its treatment. Considering the contradictory results about the use of antihypertensive drugs and falls in older adults, the present study was conducted to determine the association between the use of antihypertensive drugs and falls in older adults. Methods: This cross-sectional study was a part of the first phase of Amirkola Health and Ageing Project (AHAP), which was conducted on three groups of 250 people including healthy elderly, and hypertensive patients with and without taking antihypertensive drugs. Antihypertensive drugs were divided into 6 groups based on the mechanism of action. The variables of age, gender, body mass index, physical activity, diabetes, number of medications, depression symptoms, cognitive status, number of comorbidities, and the frequency of falls during one year before the beginning of the study and during the six-month follow-up were evaluated and compared in different categories of antihypertensive drugs by asking older adults in the three groups. Findings: Out of all studied older adults, 126 people (16.8%) fell during the last 12 months and 36 people (4.8%) fell during the six-month follow-up. No significant relationship was found between falls and the use of antihypertensive drugs, and between the use of different classes of antihypertensive drugs and falls. Variables such as depressive symptoms (OR=2.057, p=0.001), number of comorbidities (OR=0.189, p=0.006) and older age (OR=1.033, p=0.040) had an effective role in causing falls. Conclusion: The results of the study showed that the use of antihypertensive drugs and their different classes was not associated with the increase in the frequency of falls in older adults.

Keywords

• falls
• antihypertensive agents
• risk factors
• older adults.