Reliability of a Modified Medication Appropriateness Index in Ambulatory Older Persons

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the reliability of a medication appropriateness index (MAI) modified for elderly outpatients in a non-Veterans Affairs setting. DESIGN: Reliability study. SETTING: General community. PARTICIPANTS: Ten community-dwelling elderly (> 65 y) taking five or more regularly scheduled medications and participating in a university-based health service intervention study. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Interrater reliability of MAI ratings of 65 medications made by two clinical pharmacists for individual items and for an overall summed score was calculated by use of κ statistics and intraclass correlation coefficient. RESULTS: The interrater agreement for each of the individual MAI items was high for both appropriate and inappropriate ratings and ranged from 80% to 100% (overall κ = 0.64). Overall agreement for the summed score was good (intraclass correlation = 0.80). CONCLUSIONS: The modified MAI is a reliable instrument for evaluation of medication appropriateness in a non-Veterans Affairs, ambulatory, elderly population and may provide pharmacists with a practical and standard method to evaluate patients' drug regimens and identify some potential drug-related problems.