Prevalence Of Polypharmacy Among Elders And Screening For Inappropriate Prescriptions Using STOPP/START Criteria In Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital In Mumbai, India

Abstract

Polypharmacy is a rising global issue, affecting both primary and secondary care. Contributing factors are the increase in ageing and multimorbid population along with the increased use of evidence-based clinical guidelines. Polypharmacy refers to the use of multiple medicines for individuals with multiple morbidity. It is associated with adverse outcome ranging from mortality, falls, drug interaction, increase duration of hospital stay and re-admission following discharge.^1,2 The word “polypharmacy” has been derived from the ancient Greek ‘polús’ which means ‘many’, and ‘pharmakeía’ which means ‘the use of drugs’. This broad meaning is a linguistic perspective and there is no consensus on the clinical definition of polypharmacy.³ There are several definitions for polypharmacy ranging from two or more to five or more drugs intake in general or disease specific intake of drug. A systematic review by Masnoon et. al. ⁴ stated the definition of polypharmacy as the intake of five or more medication on daily basis to be most commonly used by researcher. Hence the present study has included the same definition.