ArticleDrugs & aging2020
Predictors of Mortality in the Older Population: The Role of Polypharmacy and Other Medication and Chronic Disease-Related Factors.
Article in Drugs & aging, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Interactive Remote Patient Monitoring Devices for Managing Chronic Health Conditions: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Pooled it
- Impact of in-hospital medication changes on clinical outcomes in older inpatients: the journey and destination.Age and ageing · 2025Article
- Associations of high-risk drug patterns with mortality among community-dwelling older adults: A 23-year prospective cohort study.PloS one · 2025Article
- Anticholinergic exposure and its association with dementia/Alzheimer's disease and mortality in older adults.BMC geriatrics · 2023Article
- Classifying Polypharmacy According to Pharmacotherapeutic and Clinical Risks in Older Adults: A Latent Class Analysis in Quebec, Canada.Drugs & aging · 2023Article
- Age and Breast Reconstruction.Aesthetic plastic surgery · 2023Article
- Exposure reasons, other substance use, and medical outcomes of poison control center cases aged 50+ involving opioids, 2015-2020.Clinical toxicology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2022Article
- Goods, causes and intentions: problems with applying the doctrine of double effect to palliative sedation.BMC medical ethics · 2021Article
- The Importance of Age in the Prediction of Mortality by a Frailty Index: A Machine Learning Approach in the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing.Geriatrics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Risk Factors for Hospital Readmission and Death After Discharge of Older Adults from Acute Geriatric Units: Taking the Rank of Admission into Account.Clinical interventions in aging · 2021Article
- Risk Factors for Mortality in Nursing Home Residents: An Observational Study.Geriatrics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPolypharmacy has been associated with increased mortality but the contribution of different medication-related factors to this is unknown.
aimsThe aim of this study was to identify demographic and medication-related predictors of mortality in the older population. Given the intrinsic link between polypharmacy and multimorbidity, the secondary aim was to examine if the medicines or underlying diseases predicted mortality.
methodsPatients aged ≥ 65 years from an outpatient multimorbidity clinic were included. Medication-related factors included the medicines count, high-risk medicines, inappropriate medicines duplication, and potential drug-drug and drug-disease interactions. Logistic regression was used to identify mortality predictors within a year of clinic discharge from the outpatient clinic. Patients attend the clinic until medications and comorbidity management have been optimised, at which point they are discharged from the clinic, and their General Practitioner provides ongoing care.
resultsA total of 584 patients were included (median age 80.0 years) and 9.9% (n = 58) died within a year of discharge. Demographics, namely age (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.05; 95% CI 1.01-1.09; p = 0.018) and being male (aOR 5.10; 95% CI 2.63-9.88; p < 0.001); chronic disease, namely heart failure (aOR 3.36; 95% CI 1.78-6.35; p < 0.001); and medication-related factors, namely the number of sedative and anticholinergic medicines (aOR 1.66; 95% CI 1.19-2.33; p = 0.003) predicted mortality in the study population.
conclusionWhilst polypharmacy has been defined using the number of medicines in the literature, a combination of demographics, chronic disease and medications predicted mortality in our study. This provides guidance for the development of future tools and guidelines regarding the inclusion of key factors for identifying high-risk patients at risk of adverse health outcomes such as mortality.
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