BackgroundPolypharmacy, i.e. the simultaneous use of multiple drugs, is known to be associated with compliance errors and adverse drug reactions. Norway has a list-patient system in general practice, formalizing the relationship between the patient and his/her regular general practitioner (GP). One important aim with a list-patient system is to secure medical quality in primary care by giving the GP the responsibility for coordinating the medical treatment.ObjectiveTo examine the regular GP’s role in polypharmacy to the home-dwelling elderly in Norway and to determine by how much multiple prescribers increase the risk of polypharmacy.MethodsThis was a population registry study based on data on all prescription drugs dispensed at pharmacies to patients 70 years and older from the Norwegian Prescription Database, merged with data on GPs and GPs’ patient lists from the Regular General Practitioner Database. The dataset included 624,308 patients and 4520 GPs in the period from 2004 to 2007. Outcome measures were: number of drug-substances prescribed and dispensed per patient by the regular GP, other GPs, non-GP specialists and hospital doctors; polypharmacy, defined as five or more prescribed and dispensed substances in the same quarter; excessive polypharmacy, defined as ten or more prescribed and dispensed substances in the same quarter.ResultsPolypharmacy is high and increasing despite the list-patient system. GPs prescribe all the substances that cause polypharmacy in 64 % of the incidents, but the patients’ risk of polypharmacy increases substantially with number of prescribers, odds ratio 2.32 (95 % CI 2.31–2.33).ConclusionGPs have a major role in the high and increasing polypharmacy among the elderly in Norway. Any intervention intending to improve the situation must necessarily include the GPs.
Implementing structured functional assessments in general practice made the GPs capable to assess functional ability of persons with long-term sick leave in a standardised and explicit manner. The intervention GPs' sick-listing practice was changed as they prescribed more part-time and less active sick leave compared to the control group GPs. As a result, more intervention GP patients returned to part-time work compared to control GP patients. No intervention effect was seen on duration of patient sick leave episodes or on prescription of vocational rehabilitation.
The regular GP prescribes the major portion of non-addictive and, especially, addictive medications to older patients and thus holds a key role in the coordination of prescriptions to this group. Focusing on the role of the GP is important in view of the increasing time trends.
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