|
 Yet that is exactly what a new study from Belgium finds.
“Absence of polypharmacy is not a simple indicator of quality of
care,” Dr. Maarten Wauters from Ghent University told Reuters
Health. “Patients with just a few medications could be at risk of
missing essential and beneficial medications.”
Wauters’ team looked for possible links between prescriptions and
hospitalizations and death in their study of 503 people aged 80
years and older who were living at home.
Unlike earlier studies that focused on polypharmacy, the researchers
also studied medication underuse (not having a prescription for a
medical condition) and misuse (receiving an inappropriate
prescription or not using it optimally.
More than half of the study participants were taking five or more
medications, but still, two-thirds were not receiving medications
they should have, and 56 percent were misusing medications. Four out
of 10 patients were both underusing and misusing medications.
“Only in 9 percent of this population, no polypharmacy, no underuse,
and no misuse was observed,” Wauters said by email.
The most common health problems participants had were high blood
pressure, osteoarthritis and high cholesterol. Drugs for heart
problems, blood thinning and nervous system problems were the most
commonly taken.
During the 18 months covered by the study, 9 percent of individuals
died and 31 percent had to be hospitalized.
The risk of death increased by 39 percent for each additional
prescription an individual should have received but didn't, and the
risk of hospitalization increased by 26 percent for each underused
prescription.
Individuals who didn't receive three or more medications they should
have were almost three times as likely to die and twice as likely to
be hospitalized as those who received all of the appropriate
medications.
[to top of second column] |
The most commonly underused drugs were so-called ACE inhibitors for
people with heart failure, and blood thinners and statins for people
with documented heart or vascular disease. These were followed by
inhalers for asthma or COPD and vitamin D or calcium for people with
osteoporosis.
The most commonly misused drugs were benzodiazepines, tranquilizers
that should not be taken for more than four weeks. These were
followed by duplicated drugs, such as two similar pain killers, two
medications for blood thinning or two antidepressants from the class
known as SSRIs.
After accounting for the number of medications people were taking
and underuse, misuse was not associated with the risk of dying or
being hospitalized, according to the results in British Journal of
Clinical Pharmacology.
“It has been proven that regular medication evaluations can help
prescribers and their patients to keep the medication therapy
optimal,” Wauters said. “Patients need to question their medications
as well: ‘Is it really necessary to take these sleeping pills? Do I
need something for this new disease I have? Do I have to take this
pill, even if I don’t feel any changes?’”
Wauters added that physicians and patients need to work together to
find the best combination of medications to treat their unique mix
of medical conditions.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2a938F8 British Journal of Clinical
Pharmacology, online July 18, 2016.
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
