SynthesisJournal of the American Pharmacists Association : JAPhA
Polypharmacy among COVID-19 patients: A systematic review.
Synthesis in Journal of the American Pharmacists Association : JAPhA. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 63 citations in OpenAlex.
- Adverse Drug Reactions and Drug Interactions in Multimorbid Patients: A Review of Current Evidence.Cureus · 2025Review
- Short and long-term outcomes of children and adolescents hospitalized with COVID-19 or influenza: results of the AUTCOV study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Association of Polypharmacy and Burden of Comorbidities on COVID-19 Adverse Outcomes in People with Type 1 or Type 2 Diabetes.Diabetes therapy : research, treatment and education of diabetes and related disorders · 2025Article
- Short- and long-term outcomes following COVID-19 or Influenza hospitalization in adults: results of the AUTCOV study.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Baseline medication load and long-term outcomes in COVID-19-hospitalized patients: results of the AUTCOVSTUDY.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Impact of COVID-19 on Psychiatric Patients: The Role of Vaccination, Comorbidities, and Biomarkers in Clinical Outcomes.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- The association of polypharmacy with COVID-19 outcomes independent of comorbidities in people with type 2 diabetes: implications for the unforeseen consequences of polypharmacy.Cardiovascular endocrinology & metabolism · 2024Article
- Drug Synergism of Anticancer Action in Combination with Favipiravir and Paclitaxel on Neuroblastoma Cells.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2023Article
- Article
- Effectiveness and safety of COVID-19 vaccines in patients with oncological diseases: State-of-the-art.World journal of clinical oncology · 2023Review
- Correlates of poor clinical outcomes related to COVID-19 among older people with psychiatric illness - a mixed methods study.International journal of psychiatry in medicine · 2023Article
- Staging of COVID-19 disease; using selected laboratory profiles for prediction, prevention and management of severe SARS-CoV-2 infection in Africa-review.African health sciences · 2023Review
- Mortality Prediction of COVID-19 in Hospitalized Patients Using the 2020 Diagnosis Procedure Combination Administrative Database of Japan.Internal medicine (Tokyo, Japan) · 2023Article
- Older People Hospitalized for COVID-19: Prognostic Role of Multidimensional Prognostic Index and Other Prognostic Scores.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Recent development of machine learning models for the prediction of drug-drug interactions.The Korean journal of chemical engineering · 2023Review
- Polypharmacy and associated factors: a gender perspective in the elderly Spanish population (2011-2020).Frontiers in pharmacology · 2023Article
- Drug-Drug Interactions among Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19 in Greece.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Global prevalence of polypharmacy among the COVID-19 patients: a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.Tropical medicine and health · 2022Article
- Drug-Disease Severity and Target-Disease Severity Interaction Networks in COVID-19 Patients.Pharmaceutics · 2022Article
- Potential for Drug Interactions and Polypharmacy From Treatment of COVID-19 in Long-Term Care.Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPolypharmacy, the concomitant use of 5 or more medications, is highly prevalent among older adults and individuals with multimorbid conditions and has been linked to suboptimal clinical outcomes in various diseases. However, little is known about the impact of polypharmacy on clinical outcomes among coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.
objectiveThis systematic review summarizes the available literature on the association between polypharmacy and specific drug classes, and clinical outcomes among COVID-19 patients.
methodsWe conducted an electronic database search on Embase, Medline, Cochrane, Scopus, Google Scholar, clinicaltrials.gov, LITCOVID, PubMed, PubMed Central (PMC), and China national knowledge infrastructure for studies on Polypharmacy among COVID-19 patients using relevant combinations of the keywords. Only studies published between November 2019 to September 2020 were included. Seven articles out of 1502 unique articles met the inclusion criteria and were used for the current study. We adopted the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guideline in conducting and reporting this systematic review.
resultsThe total sample size of all studies was 474,342, out of which 10,519 patients were COVID-19 positive, and 4818 COVID-19 positive patients experienced polypharmacy. Five out of the 7 included studies found associations between polypharmacy and negative clinical outcomes among COVID-19 patients. Polypharmacy was associated with increase in the relative risk of a positive COVID-19 test result (P < 0.01), death among male COVID-19 patients (P < 0.001), increase in the rate of acute kidney injury (P = 0.003), and adverse drug reactions (P < 0.001). Antipsychotic drugs were associated with severe COVID-19 morbidity (OR = 2.79; 95% CI 2.23-3.49) and increased risk of death among COVID-19 infected men (OR = 1.71; 95% CI 1.18-2.48) and women (OR = 1.96; 95% CI 1.41-2.73).
conclusionPolypharmacy and selected drug classes are associated with increased risk of adverse clinical outcomes among COVID-19 patients. Understanding these relationships can enhance risk stratification and evidence-based decision-making that may improve care and clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients.
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