Polypharmacy in older adults might lead to negative health consequences, and interventions to optimize the use of multiple medications should be implemented, a new study finds.
Researchers evaluated the association between continuous polypharmacy and hospitalization, emergency department visits and death. They found that taking multiple drugs at the same time made it more likely that people would experience all of the three outcomes studied.
The study was published Tuesday in Frontiers in Pharmacology.
As part of the study, the team evaluated claims data from 6,443,896 people between the ages of 65 and 84 years. Data was collected from 2016 to 2018. The team defined polypharmacy as the concurrent use of five or more medications, and excessive polypharmacy was taking 10 or more medications for 90 days or more and 180 days or more within a one-year period of time.
A total of 2,693,897 patients had used medicines for 180 days or more (2,955,755 patients took medicines for 90 days or more. Among participants, 20.5% using medications for more than 180 days were hospitalized, compared to 20.3% taking drugs for 90 days or more. A total of 10.9% taking medications for more than 180 days visited the emergency department, while 10.8% of those on medications for more than 90 days did the same. In each group, 1% of participants died.
Among participants, those were on the medications for more than 180 days were 1.32 times more likely to be hospitalized, 1.32 times more likely to visit the emergency department and 1.63 times more likely to die. In those classified with excessive polypharmacy on drugs for more than 180 days, they were 1.85 times more likely to be hospitalized, 1.92 more likely to visit the emergency room and 2.57 times more likely to die.
