ArticleClinical epidemiology2019
Polypharmacy and injurious falls in older adults: a nationwide nested case-control study.
Article in Clinical epidemiology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 66 citations in OpenAlex.
- Potentially inappropriate prescribing and falls-risk increasing drugs in people who have experienced a fall: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Age and ageing · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review of chiropractic care for fall prevention: rationale, state of the evidence, and recommendations for future research.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2022Pooled it
- Baseline Prevalence of Polypharmacy in Older Hypertensive Study Subjects with Elevated Dementia Risk: Findings from the Risk Reduction for Alzheimer's Disease Study (rrAD).Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2020Trial
- Appropriateness over Numbers: Pharmacological Burden and Scalable Medication Review in Older Adults.Geriatrics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- e-Counseling for Fall Prevention in Older Adults: Scoping Review.JMIR aging · 2026Article
- Sex Differences in the Development of a Multidimensional Fall Risk Index for Older Adults.Gerontology · 2026Article
- Drug Burden Index and its association with postural balance and falls among community-dwelling older adults.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Association between sarcopenia and fall history in middle-aged and older adults: a multidimensional clinical analysis of nutritional status, bone health, and medication burden.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Exploring Fall-Related Fracture Risk by Possible Fall-Risk Increasing Drugs in Japanese Older Adults Using Municipal Linked Medical and Long-Term Care Claim Data: A Nested Case-Control and Case-Crossover Study.Geriatrics & gerontology international · 2025Article
- Sedative-hypnotic drug use and risk of falls and fractures in elderly patients: a cross-sectional study.BMC geriatrics · 2025Article
- Fall Risk and Knowledge of Fall-Risk-Increasing Drugs Among Saudi Older Adults.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Preadmission medications and recent falls in older inpatients: an observational study.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2025Observational
- The impact of hip fracture on resilience in health-related quality of life: a cohort study.European geriatric medicine · 2025Article
- Polypharmacy among adults receiving outpatient care at Kitgum General Hospital, Northern Uganda.BMC primary care · 2025Article
- A study protocol for exploring and implementing a surgical pharmaceutical service model in drug treatment management for patients with osteoporosis fracture in China.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Pre-clinical Models for Geriatric Pharmacotherapy.Drugs & aging · 2024Review
- Association between Polypharmacy and Hospitalization among Older Adults Admitted to Emergency Departments for Falls in Guadeloupe: A Retrospective Cohort Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
- Association between toileting and falls in older adults admitted to the emergency department and hospitalised: a cross-sectional study.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Polypharmacy in Older Adults with Alzheimer's Disease.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo determine whether or not the exposure to multiple drugs (polypharmacy) increases the risk of fall-related injury among older adults, beyond the effect of fall-risk increasing drugs and chronic multimorbidity.
methodsNested case-control study using linked register data with national coverage in Sweden. We defined cases as older adults (≥70 years) who had an incident non-elective admission due to a fall between 1 January and 31 December 2013. Cases were matched 1:1 on sex, age and index date to randomly selected controls from the general population. The number of prescription drugs during the 7 days preceding the index date was the main exposure.
resultsA total of 49,609 cases were included and matched to an equal number of controls. The number of prescription drugs was higher among cases than among controls (mean difference 1.2, 95% CI 1.16-1.26). While adjusting for potential confounders, we found that the risk of injurious falls increased in a nearly linear fashion for each additional drug (OR, 1.02; 95% CI, 1.01-1.03). When using a cut-off value of ≥4 drugs to define polypharmacy, the population attributable fraction for injurious falls was 5.2% (95% CI 2.8-7.6).
conclusionThis study shows a monotonic dose-response relationship between the number of drugs and the risk of injurious falls. However, after comprehensive adjustment for known confounders (including fall-risk increasing drugs and chronic multimorbidity), this association is substantially weaker than previously reported. Moreover, even if the relationship between polypharmacy and injurious falls is really causal, the population attributable risk fraction is low.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.