SynthesisClinical interventions in aging2021
Economic Evaluations of Interventions to Optimize Medication Use in Older Adults with Polypharmacy and Multimorbidity: A Systematic Review.
Synthesis in Clinical interventions in aging, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
16 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Deprescribing Interventions in Older Adults with Polypharmacy: A Systematic Review of Economic Evaluations.Applied health economics and health policy · 2026Pooled it
- Interventions to enhance in-home taking medication among older adults with multimorbidity/polypharmacy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
- Economic evaluations of interventional opportunities for the management of mental-physical multimorbidity: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2023Pooled it
- The effects of pharmaceutical interventions on potentially inappropriate medications in older patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2023Pooled it
- Implementing physician-led medication reviews for patients with diabetes and severe mental disorder: A randomized controlled trial.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2025Trial
- Cost effectiveness of a GP delivered medication review to reduce polypharmacy and potentially inappropriate prescribing in older patients with multimorbidity in Irish primary care: the SPPiRE cluster randomised controlled trial.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2025Trial
- Economic burden of hospital admissions for adverse drug reactions in France: The IATROSTAT-ECO study.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2025Article
- Economic cost-benefit analysis of person-centred medicines reviews by general practice pharmacists.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2024Article
- Potentially Inappropriate Medication: A Pilot Study in Institutionalized Older Adults.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Polypharmacy Management in Chronic Conditions: A Systematic Literature Review of Italian Interventions.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Review
- Defining, identifying and addressing problematic polypharmacy within multimorbidity in primary care: a scoping review.BMJ open · 2024Article
- Cumulative Update of a Systematic Overview Evaluating Interventions Addressing Polypharmacy.JAMA network open · 2024Review
- Article
- Enhancing medication management of older adults in Qatar: healthcare professionals' perspectives on challenges, barriers and enabling solutions.Therapeutic advances in drug safety · 2024Article
- Strategies and Tools for Supporting the Appropriateness of Drug Use in Older People.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Effectiveness of Interventions to Reduce Potentially Inappropriate Medication in Older Patients: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTo conduct a systematic review of the economic impact of interventions intended at optimizing medication use in older adults with multimorbidity and polypharmacy.
methodsWe searched Ovid-Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Ageline, Cochrane, and Web of Science, for articles published between 2004 and 2020 that studied older adults with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. The intervention studied had to be aimed at optimizing medication use and present results on costs.
resultsOut of 3,871 studies identified by the search strategy, eleven studies were included. The interventions involved different provider types, with a majority described as a multidisciplinary team involving a pharmacist and a general practitioner, in the decision-making process. Interventions were generally associated with a reduction in medication expenditure. The benefits of the intervention in terms of clinical outcomes remain limited. Five studies were cost-benefit analyses, which had a net benefit that was either null or positive. Cost-utility and cost-effectiveness analyses resulted in incremental cost-effectiveness ratios that were generally within the willingness-to-pay thresholds of the countries in which the studies were conducted. However, the quality of the studies was generally low. Omission of key cost elements of economic evaluations, including intervention cost and payer perspective, limited interpretability.
conclusionInterventions to optimize medication use may provide benefits that outweigh their implementation costs, but the evidence remains limited. There is a need to identify and address barriers to the scaling-up of such interventions, starting with the current incentive structures for pharmacists, physicians, and patients.
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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.