ReviewTherapeutics and clinical risk management2020
Failure to Reach a Consensus in Polypharmacy Definition: An Obstacle to Measuring Risks and Impacts-Results of a Literature Review.
Review in Therapeutics and clinical risk management, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prediction Model for Skin Damage Related to Medical Adhesives in Adult Patients Undergoing Degenerative Spine Surgery.International wound journal · 2026Observational
- Development and testing of an electronic frailty index using Canadian electronic medical record data in primary care.BMC primary care · 2025Article
- The impact of palliative care consults on medicines optimisation for patients with cancer referred to hospice care at the end of life: a retrospective cohort study.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2025Article
- Therapeutic Adherence and Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing in Older Adults with Polypharmacy in Primary Health Care.Patient preference and adherence · 2025Article
- Protocol for the development and validation of a Polypharmacy Assessment Score.Diagnostic and prognostic research · 2024Article
- Defining, identifying and addressing problematic polypharmacy within multimorbidity in primary care: a scoping review.BMJ open · 2024Article
- Comprehensive Analysis of Drug Utilization Patterns, Gender Disparities, Lifestyle Influences, and Genetic Factors: Insights from Elderly Cohort Using g-NomicPharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Potentially modifiable factors associated with health-related quality of life among people with chronic kidney disease: baseline findings from the National Unified Renal Translational Research Enterprise CKD (NURTuRE-CKD) cohort.Clinical kidney journal · 2024Article
- Prescribing and deprescribing in older people with life-limiting illnesses receiving hospice care at the end of life: A longitudinal, retrospective cohort study.Palliative medicine · 2024Article
- The association between continuous polypharmacy and hospitalization, emergency department visits, and death in older adults: a nationwide large cohort study.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Article
- Differences in healthcare service utilization in patients with polypharmacy according to their risk level by adjusted morbidity groups: a population-based cross-sectional study.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2023Article
- Polypharmacy among patients with hypertension attending primary healthcare centres.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2023Article
- The Association Between Medication Use in Older Women with Early-Stage Operable Primary Breast Cancer and Decision Regarding Primary Treatment.The oncologist · 2023Article
- Disentangling concepts of inappropriate polypharmacy in old age: a scoping review.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Exploring the Determinants of Polypharmacy Prescribing and Dispensing Behaviors in Primary Care for the Elderly-Qualitative Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Theoretically derived interventions aimed at improving appropriate polypharmacy in primary care: A systematic review.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2022Review
- Impact of Specialized Clinics on Medications Deprescribing in Older Adults: A Pilot Study in Ambulatory Care Clinics in a Teaching Hospital.Saudi pharmaceutical journal : SPJ : the official publication of the Saudi Pharmaceutical Society · 2022Article
- Physicians' perceived barriers and enablers for deprescribing among older patients at public primary care clinics: a qualitative study.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2022Article
- An Atypical Case of Extreme Polypharmacy.Drug, healthcare and patient safety · 2022Article
- Assessment of Polypharmacy, Drug Use Patterns, and Associated Factors at the Edna Adan University Hospital, Hargeisa, Somaliland.Journal of tropical medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionThe risk of polypharmacy is on the rise in most industrialized countries, threatening to burden their health systems. Although many definitions exist and numerous concepts are found in literature as synonyms, the phenomenon of polypharmacy remains poorly defined. The aim of this literature review is to provide an overview of available definitions of polypharmacy, to analyse their convergences and divergences and to discuss the consequences on the assessment of the problem.
methodsA literature review was conducted to identify all published systematic reviews on definitions of polypharmacy available via Scopus and Pubmed databases. The Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) tool was used to appraise the methodological quality of the selected reviews. Available definitions and other characteristics were extracted; summarised in a table and analysed.
resultsSix systematic reviews were identified. They were published between 2000 and 2018. Three focussed on definitions of polypharmacy in the elderly; two in the general population and one in children. The strategy adopted in reviews is more rigorous in the most recent ones. However, they remain, at best, partially exhaustive. The definitions found in the literature used two main approaches, either (i) quantitative, applying varying thresholds and types of polypharmacy based on the number of medications being taken by the patient (ii) qualitative, based on the clinical indications and effects of a given drug regimen, with a growing number of characteristics to describe polypharmacy. The term "inappropriate" is increasingly associated with polypharmacy especially in studies that aimed to use this definition to identify possible solutions for healthcare providers in the field related to aging.
conclusionThis review confirms a high variability and an evolution in the approaches defining "polypharmacy" in the absence of a consensus following standardized criteria. That makes it very difficult to estimate and measure the outcomes associated with this phenomenon.
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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.