BACKGROUND There is a dearth of data on polypharmacy in child and adolescent mental health in Africa, especially Botswana where children and adults are treated in the same facility by general adult psychiatrists. This study was therefore designed to assess the prevalence and the risk factors of psychiatric polypharmacy among children and adolescents treated at Sbrana Psychiatric Hospital, Lobat...

BACKGROUND Polypharmacy (ie, the use of multiple medications and/or the administration of more medications than are clinically indicated, representing unnecessary drug use) is common among the elderly. OBJECTIVE The goal of this research was to provide a description of observational studies examining the epidemiology of polypharmacy and to review randomized controlled studies that have been p...

BACKGROUND Drug-related problems (DRPs) have been shown to prevail in hospitalized patients, and polypharmacy and increasing age have been identified as two important risk factors. OBJECTIVE We investigated the occurrence of DRPs and adverse drug reactions (ADRs) amongst hospitalized patients prescribed polypharmacy, and the association of advanced age and female gender. METHOD A retrospect...

BACKGROUND Polypharmacy has been associated with increased morbidity and mortality in the older population. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence, risk factors and health outcomes associated with polypharmacy in a cohort of urban community-dwelling older adults receiving chronic medications in Malaysia. METHODS This was a baseline study in the Malaysian Elders Lon...

The purpose of the present study was to examine correlates of polypharmacy among underserved community-dwelling older African American adults. Methods. This study recruited 400 underserved older African Americans adults living in South Los Angeles. The structured face-to-face interviews collected data on participants' characteristics and elicited data pertaining to the type, frequency, dosage, ...

OBJECTIVE This study investigated the prescription patterns for Korean patients with schizophrenia with a particular focus on antipsychotic polypharmacy. All data were gathered from patients presenting at 41 tertiary university hospitals and 8 secondary hospitals. METHODS Data from three multicenter studies conducted in Korea were retrospectively reviewed and integrated to identify patients w...

Polypharmacy, defined by the World Health Organisation as "the administration of many drugs at the same time or the administration of an excessive number of drugs" is frequent among the elderly as they often suffer from chronic diseases with concomitant pathologies. If polypharmacy is legitimate in some cases, it can also be inappropriate and in all cases carries the risk of adverse effects or ...

The term polypharmacy has negative connotations due to its association with adverse drug reactions and falls. This spectrum of adverse events widens when polypharmacy occurs among the already vulnerable geriatric population. To date, there is no consensus definition of polypharmacy, and diverse definitions have been used by various researchers, the most common being the consumption of multiple ...

BACKGROUND Polypharmacy with psychoactive drugs is an increasingly common and debatable contemporary practice in clinical psychiatry based more upon experience than evidence. The objective of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and conditioners of polypharmacy in psychiatric patients. METHOD A cross-sectional survey was carried out using the Canary Islands Health Service Clinical Record...