OBJECTIVE To verify whether depression, defined as a 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) > 6, is associated with greater drug utilization by elderly patients. POPULATION 2568 patients enrolled in the Gruppo Italiano di Farmacovigilanza nell'Anziano (GIFA) study. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Polypharmacy, ie, the daily use of at least 3 drugs, excluding antidepressant and anxiolytic agents, in ...

Multiple medication use has been coined 'polypharmacy'. Polypharmacy is highly prevalent in older patients secondary to the increased number of co-morbid disease states with ageing. Existing practice guidelines recommend multiple drug use for certain chronic diseases (i.e., HIV, tuberculosis, hypertension, etc.). A polypharmacologic approach for certain diseases has been shown to improve therap...

Objective: To investigate polypharmacy among the elderly living in the urban area of Florianopolis, in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, estimating the prevalence and associated factors. Methods: This is a cross-sectional population-based study with a sample of 1,705 individuals aged 60 years old or older, between 2009 and 2010. The dependent variable was polypharmacy (defined as "use of f...

OBJECTIVE Although antipsychotic polypharmacy is being prescribed with increasing frequency, few studies have described patient characteristics and treatment patterns associated with long-term use of this treatment strategy. METHODS By using data from the National Psychosis Registry of the Department of Veterans Affairs, 5,826 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who receiv...

OBJECTIVES We quantified concomitant medication polypharmacy, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic interactions, adverse effects and adherence in Australian adults on effective antiretroviral therapy. DESIGN Cross-sectional. METHODS Patients recruited into a nationwide cohort and assessed for prevalence and type of concomitant medication (including polypharmacy, defined as ≥5 concomitant med...

BACKGROUND Older people are a growing population. They live longer, but often have multiple chronic diseases. As a consequence, they are taking many different kind of medicines, while their vulnerability to pharmaceutical products is increased. The objective of this study is to describe the medicine utilization pattern in people aged 65 years and older in Belgium, and to estimate the prevalence...

Polypharmacy is a term that describes the inappropriate, concurrent use of multiple drugs in an individual patient. Zoological medicine practitioners must take approved agents (veterinary or human) and extrapolate their use to non-approved species often with little species-specific pharmacological evidence to support their decisions. When considering polypharmacy, even less information exists c...

Polypharmacy and adverse drug events (ADE) continue to be difficult problems in modern healthcare despite continuing efforts to reduce their occurrence. The incidence of polypharmacy is increasing dramatically in the geriatric population, especially when considering that this 15% segment of the United States population accounts for nearly one third of all prescription medications. Increased inc...

BACKGROUND Although the validity and safety of antipsychotic polypharmacy remains unclear, it is commonplace in the treatment of schizophrenia. This study aimed to investigate the degree that antipsychotic polypharmacy contributed to metabolic syndrome in outpatients with schizophrenia, after adjustment for the effects of lifestyle. METHODS A cross-sectional survey was carried out between Apr...

PURPOSE To ascertain the rate and range of continuous polypharmacy in German general practices and compare practice characteristics and prescribing profiles in practices with a high rate of polypharmacy patients (HPP) and a low rate of polypharmacy patients (LPP), respectively. METHODS This observational study used a database composed of prescription data from a large German statutory health ...