Multiple medicine use: factors of importance in different age groups

• BACKGROUND: Multiple medicine use among elderly persons is likely to be the result of treatment regimens developed over a long time. By learning more about this development, it might be possible to increase quality in management of multiple medicine use across the adult lifespan. OBJECTIVE: To describe patterns of multiple medicine use in a general population in association with sociodemographic factors, lifestyle, and health status. METHODS: Data from a cross-sectional population health survey collected during 2001-2005 in 2,816 randomly selected Swedish residents (age 30-75 years; response rate 76%). Multiple medicine use was defined as the upper quartile in each age cohort. RESULTS: The cut-offs defining multiple medicine use were: ≥2 for 30-49 year olds, ≥3 for 50-64 year olds, and ≥5 for 65-75 year olds. When drugs were classified into the second level of the ATC code, 76.3% of the 30-49 year olds, 97.9% of the 50-64 year olds, and 100% of the 65-75 year olds used a unique combination of drugs. The multivariate analyses showed that diabetes and poor self-rated health were associated with multiple medicine use in all age cohorts. Female gender and hypertension were associated with multiple medicine use among 30-49 and 50-64 year olds, ex-smoking among 50-64 year olds, and obesity among 65-75 year olds. CONCLUSIONS: Different cut-offs should be used in defining multiple medicine use in different age groups. A vast majority of users of multiple medicines have a unique drug combination. Multiple medicine use is associated with morbidity and poor self-rated health across all age groups, suggesting that multiple medicine use is not due to drug over-consumption.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Medicinska och farmaceutiska grundvetenskaper -- Samhällsfarmaci och klinisk farmaci (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Basic Medicine -- Social and Clinical Pharmacy (hsv//eng)

Keyword

health status factors

lifestyle factors

multiple medicine use

polypharmacy

population survey

self-rated health

sociodemographic factors

Community pharmacy services

Samhällsfarmaci

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)