Comparison of polypharmacy and pharmacotherapy among seniors in social institutions in 2001 and 2019

Polypharmacy (polypharmacotherapy) is a serious problem among seniors. The aim of the work was to compare pharmacotherapy and polypharmacy among seniors in social facilities in 2001 and 2019.

As of December 31, 2001, we collected data on the pharmacotherapy of 151 residents of two retirement homes (average age 75.1 years, 68.9% women). We compared the results with the pharmacotherapy of residents of two facilities for seniors as of October 31, 2019 (237 seniors, average age 80.5 years, 73.4% women). According to the medical records, we determined and compared the regularly used medicines of all residents, the use of medicines by age and sex, the use of 0-4 medicines, 5-9 medicines, 5 or more medicines, 10 or more medicines and the groups of medicines according to the ATC classification. For statistical processing, we used the t-test and chi-square test.

In 2001, residents regularly used a total of 891 medicines, 18 years later, they used a total of 2099 medicines. We observed a significant increase in the average number of regularly used medications per resident by more than a half (from 5.90 medications to 8.86 medications), in women from 6.11 drugs to 9.24 drugs and in men from 5.45 drugs to 7.81 drugs. The number of residents with polypharmacy (regular use of ≥ 5 drugs) increased by almost a quarter (from 70.2% to 87.3%), and the number of seniors with excessive polypharmacy (regular use of ≥ 10 drugs) increased 4.6 times (from 9, 3% to 43.5%).

Our work confirmed that over the course of 18 years, the number of medications used by seniors in social-type institutions has increased. It also points to the trend of increasing polypharmacy and excessive polypharmacy among seniors, especially at the age of 75+ and among women.