Prevalence, predisposing factors and strategies to reduce polypharmacy among older patients in Poland

Błeszyńska-Marunowska, Emilia; Jagiełło, Kacper; Grodzicki, Tomasz; Wierucki, Łukasz; Sznitowska, Małgorzata; Kalarus, Zbigniew; Renke, Marcin; Mitręga, Katarzyna; Rewiuk, Krzysztof; Zdrojewski, Tomasz

doi:10.20452/pamw.16347

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Moreover, communication between healthcare providers caring for older patients, especially those with multimorbidities, is essential. Additionally, the utilization of standardized tools in reviewing and prescribing medications for geriatric patients, such as the STOPP criteria (Screening Tool for Older Person's potentially inappropriate Prescriptions), the Beers' criteria, and the START criteria (Screening Tool to Alert doctors to the Right Treatment) is also vital( 26 - 28 ). Another recommended solution to reduce polypharmacy is maintaining regular access to the primary care physician for medication reconciliation and deprescribing ( 20 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Association Between Multi-Morbidities and Polypharmacy Among Older Adults at an Academic Medical Center in Saudi Arabia

AlAbdulKader,

Alsheikh,

Alghamdi

et al. 2023

Med Arch

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Background: Polypharmacy, or the routine use of five or more medications, can result in impacting patients' quality of life. Objective: to examine the association between multi-morbidities and polypharmacy, and to examine prescription practices in the elderly. Methods: This is a retrospective cross-sectional study. Data were gathered from electronic medical records (EMR) at King Fahad University Hospital (KFHU) and the Family & Community Medicine Center (FCMC) of Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University (IAU), between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020. We included individuals aged 60 and above with at least one dispensed prescription in 2019 and 2020. Of the 76,216 patient records reviewed, 5,060 met the inclusion criteria. Polypharmacy was defined as a monthly average of five or more prescribed medications. The prevalence of polypharmacy was calculated by year, sex, and age group, and findings were summarized using mean medication numbers and standard deviations for each stratum. An app using R programming language was developed to help visualize patients' medication histories through interactive plots. Results: Polypharmacy prevalence was 46% in 2019 and 44.6% in 2020. The mean and standard deviation of medications per person was 5.17 (3.42) in 2019 and 5.04 (3.37) in 2020. Females had a higher average number of medications than males, 5.17 (3.47) vs 5.04 (3.32). The age group of 80-85 had the highest number of medications at 5.6 (3.6), while those aged 90 and above had the lowest number at 4.48 (2.64). The presence of comorbidities was positively associated with the mean monthly medication count (P value < 0.01). Conclusion: Our study revealed a high prevalence of polypharmacy among elderly patients at KFHU/FCMC, and a positive association with multi-morbidities. Consequently, measures must be taken to mitigate this globally emerging issue's impact and rapid progression.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Association Between Multi-Morbidities and Polypharmacy Among Older Adults at an Academic Medical Center in Saudi Arabia

AlAbdulKader,

Alsheikh,

Alghamdi

et al. 2023

Med Arch

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“…Błeszyńska-Marunowska et al draws attention to the difficulties of pharmacotherapy of seniors due to changes in metabolism, multi-morbidity and great interest in over-the-counter drugs, leading to polypharmacy of seniors, which consequently requires the implementation of combined medical and pharmaceutical care for geriatric patients. Our own observations did not include the analysis of self-pharmacotherapy by patients, only drugs administered by EMTs, mainly symptomatic ones, oxygen and drip infusions ( 25 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geriatric patient in the practice of emergency medical teams – observation in 2020–2022

Czyżewski,

Dudziński,

Wyzgał

2023

Front. Med.

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PurposeAnalysis of interventions of medical rescue teams for geriatric patients in a three-year period, taking into account the causes, circumstances, medical management, pharmacology.Materials and methodsThe study included a 3-year retrospective analysis of the trips of medical rescue teams in the northern part of the Lubelskie Voivodeship in the period from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2022. The data comes from medical documentation. Interventions caused by a health risk in a patient in the 90+ age group were qualified as events. 897 EMT interventions were qualified (2020–327, 2021–269, 2022–301) constituting 4.29% of all interventions carried out in the operational area. In addition, a quantitative analysis of a comparative group of patients aged 80–89 was performed.ResultsIt was shown that the time of rescue activities was the longest for injuries and the shortest for mental disorders (60 ± 31 vs. 43 ± 21 min). It was shown that specialist EMT teams (S) were statistically significantly more often called for cardiology disorders (63%). It was shown that pharmacological agents were used statistically significantly more often in respiratory disorders (83%) compared to neurology disorders (47%, p < 0.001). It was also shown that patients whose call was caused by neurology disorders were statistically more often transported to the emergency department (N = 76, 76%, p < 0.001).ConclusionThe causes of calls regarding disorders of the circulatory and respiratory systems most often require the implementation of pharmacology during EMT interventions, mainly short-term and symptomatic drugs. Interventions to rural areas dominate in the presented analysis in each year of the analysis and in each group of reasons for calls, which may be associated with more difficult access to a primary care physician. Most EMT interventions concern exacerbation of chronic diseases. Transport to the hospital was necessary mainly due to neurological and traumatic calls.

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“…Measuring the prevalence of OTC medication use is challenging because sales data on OTC medications is not linked to individual patients. Many studies have used a cross-sectional design to estimate OTC medications usage but the definitions of usage and the age span of respondents differ, resulting in a large range of estimates [8,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Table 1 shows a sample of studies reporting the prevalence of OTC medication use published in the last 10 years.…”

Section: Recent Estimates Of the Prevalence Of Otc Medications Use By...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Elevating Safe Use of Over-The-Counter Medications in Older Adults: A Narrative Review of Pharmacy Involved Interventions and Recommendations for Improvement

Lehnbom,

Berbakov,

Hoffins

et al. 2023

Drugs Aging

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Over-the-counter (OTC) medications are products that have been made easily accessible to allow patients to treat common ailments without a prescription and cost a doctor's visit. These medications are generally considered safe, however, there is still a potential for these medications to lead to adverse health outcomes. Older adults (ages 50+) are especially susceptible to these adverse health outcomes, due to age-related physiological changes, a higher prevalence of comorbidities, and prescription medication use. Many OTC medications are sold in pharmacies, which provides pharmacists and technicians with the opportunity to help guide safe selection and use for these medications. Therefore, community pharmacies are the ideal setting for OTC medication safety interventions. This narrative review summarizes the findings of pharmacy-involved interventions that promote safe OTC medication use for older adults.

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Prevalence, predisposing factors and strategies to reduce polypharmacy among older patients in Poland

Cited by 4 publications

References 33 publications

Association Between Multi-Morbidities and Polypharmacy Among Older Adults at an Academic Medical Center in Saudi Arabia

Association Between Multi-Morbidities and Polypharmacy Among Older Adults at an Academic Medical Center in Saudi Arabia

Geriatric patient in the practice of emergency medical teams – observation in 2020–2022

Elevating Safe Use of Over-The-Counter Medications in Older Adults: A Narrative Review of Pharmacy Involved Interventions and Recommendations for Improvement

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