Presenting many advantages, solid oral dosage forms (SODFs) are widely manufactured and frequently prescribed in older populations regardless of the specific characteristics of patients. Commonly, patients with dysphagia (swallowing disorders) experience difficulties taking SODFs, which may lead to non-adherence or misuse. SODF characteristics (e.g., size, shape, thickness) are likely to influence swallowability. Herein, we used the acceptability reference framework (the ClinSearch acceptability score test (CAST))—a 3D-map juxtaposing two acceptability profiles—to investigate the impact of tablet size on acceptability. We collected 938 observer reports on the tablet intake by patients ≥ 65 years in hospitals or care homes. As we might expect, tablets could be classified as accepted in older patients without dysphagia (n = 790), while not in those with swallowing disorders (n = 146). However, reducing the tablet size had a significant impact on acceptability in this subpopulation: tablets < 6.5 mm appeared to be accepted by patients with swallowing disorders. Among the 309 distinct tablets assessed in this study, ranging in size from 4.7 to 21.5 mm, 83% are ≥ 6.5 mm and consequently may be poorly accepted by institutionalized older people and older inpatients suffering from dysphagia. This underlines the need to develop and prescribe medicines with the best adapted characteristics to reach an optimal acceptability in targeted users.

中文翻译：

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老年人口的可接受性：适当大小的药片的重要性。

具有许多优点，无论患者的具体特征如何，固体口服剂型（SODF）广泛生产并且经常在老年人口中开处方。通常，吞咽困难（吞咽障碍）患者在服用SODF时会遇到困难，这可能导致不坚持或误用。SODF特性（例如大小，形状，厚度）可能会影响可吞咽性。在这里，我们使用可接受性参考框架（ClinSearch可接受性分数测试（CAST））（将两个可接受性配置文件并置的3D地图）来研究药片尺寸对可接受性的影响。我们收集了938份关于医院或护理院中≥65岁的患者服用片剂的观察报告。如我们所料，片剂可被归类为没有吞咽困难的老年患者（n= 790），但没有吞咽障碍患者（n = 146）。但是，减小药片的大小会对这一亚群的可接受性产生重大影响：吞咽障碍患者似乎接受了<6.5 mm的药片。在这项研究中评估的309种不同的药片中，大小在4.7至21.5毫米之间，其中83％≥6.5毫米，因此，制度化的老年人和吞咽困难的老年住院患者可能难以接受。这强调需要开发和开具具有最佳适应性的药物，以在目标用户中获得最佳接受度。