Prevalence of and factors associated with polypharmacy among elderly persons resident in the community

Abstract Objective: to verify the prevalence of and factors associated with polypharmacy among elderly residents of the city of Cuiabá, in the state of Mato Grosso. Method: a cross-sectional study of 573 people aged 60 and over was performed. Polypharmacy was defined as the use of five or more medications. To investigate the association between polypharmacy and sociodemographic variables, health and access to medication, the Mantel Haenszel chi square test was used in bivariate analysis and Poisson regression was used in multivariate analysis. The significance level adopted was 5%. Result: the prevalence of polypharmacy was 10.30%. Statistically significant associations were found between polypharmacy and living with others, describing suffering from circulatory, endocrine, nutritional and digestive tract diseases, and referring to financial difficulties for the purchase of medicines. Conclusion: some social and health condition factors play an important role in the use of multiple medications among the elderly.

摘要
研究目的：验证马托格罗索州库亚巴市老年居民的多重用药（polypharmacy）患病率及其相关影响因素。
研究方法：本研究为横断面研究，共纳入573名60岁及以上的老年受试者。多重用药定义为同时使用5种及以上药物。为探讨多重用药与社会人口学变量、健康状况及药物获取途径之间的关联，双变量分析采用曼特尔-亨塞尔卡方检验，多变量分析采用泊松回归。本研究设定的显著性检验水准为5%。
研究结果：本次研究中多重用药的患病率为10.30%。结果显示，多重用药与同住他人、罹患循环系统、内分泌系统、营养代谢及消化系统疾病，以及自述购药存在经济困难等因素存在统计学显著关联。
研究结论：部分社会与健康状况因素对老年群体的多重用药行为具有重要影响。