The public defence will be held as a video conference over Zoom.
The defence will follow regular procedure as far as possible, hence it will be open to the public and the audience can ask ex auditorio questions when invited to do so.
Click here to participate in the public defence
Due to copyright reasons, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. In order for the faculty to have time to process the order, it must be received by the faculty no later than 2 days prior to the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. Inquiries regarding the thesis after the public defence must be addressed to the candidate.
Digital Trial Lecture – time and place
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Emeritus Anders Grimsmo, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
- Second opponent: Postdoctoral Researcher Carina Lundby, University of Southern Denmark
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor Ragnhild Hellesø, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Emerita Reidun Førde, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Jørund Straand, Professor, University of Oslo
Summary
Nursing home residents are typically frail olds with multiple diagnoses and symptoms. Polypharmacy is therefore common. In turn, polypharmacy increases their risk for unfortunate and harmful drug effects.
In her thesis Drug use and drug-related problems in nursing homes: prevalence, changes following medication review and variation between institutions. Drug use and medication review in nursing homes in Oslo, Amura Francesca Gladhaug has shown a high consumption of psychotropic drugs (antipsychotics, anxiolytics, sedative-hypnotics, antidepressants and opioids) at the nursing homes. The drug use, in particular of psychotropic drugs, varied largely between the 41 nursing homes. The extent of inappropriate medication use, most often as the use of unnecessary medications or using too high doses also varied widely between the different nursing homes.
The project also included multidisciplinary (physician, pharmacist and nurse) medication reviews of individual patients’ drug use. This led to reduced drug use in general and less use of inappropriate drugs in particular.
In a sub-study the drug use of elderly who lived in nursing homes was compared with that of peers living in own homes. While nursing home residents in general used far more psychotropic drugs, nitrates and diuretics, home-dwelling elderly used significantly more cardiovascular drugs and drugs for osteoarthritis. In both settings, the regular use of proton pump inhibitors to prevent stomach ulcers was surprisingly high.
Medication use for older people, both within and outside nursing homes, do need continued research and quality improvements. However, the approach must be adapted to the setting in question. In nursing homes, regular drug reviews by multidisciplinary teams are particularly important measures to improve the medication quality for individual residents.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.