Polypharmacy and the Change of Self-Rated Health in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Muhammad Helmi Barghouth (), Elke Schaeffner, Natalie Ebert, Tim Bothe, Alice Schneider and Nina Mielke
Additional contact information
Muhammad Helmi Barghouth: Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institute of Public Health, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Elke Schaeffner: Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institute of Public Health, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Natalie Ebert: Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institute of Public Health, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Tim Bothe: Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institute of Public Health, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Alice Schneider: Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Univer-sität zu Berlin, Institute of Biometry and Clinical Epidemiology, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Nina Mielke: Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institute of Public Health, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 5, 1-16

Abstract: Polypharmacy is associated with poorer self-rated health (SRH). However, whether polypharmacy has an impact on the SRH progression is unknown. This study investigates the association of polypharmacy with SRH change in 1428 participants of the Berlin Initiative Study aged 70 years and older over four years. Polypharmacy was defined as the intake of ≥5 medications. Descriptive statistics of SRH-change categories stratified by polypharmacy status were reported. The association of polypharmacy with being in SRH change categories was assessed using multinomial regression analysis. At baseline, mean age was 79.1 (6.1) years, 54.0% were females, and prevalence of polypharmacy was 47.1%. Participants with polypharmacy were older and had more comorbidities compared to those without polypharmacy. Over four years, five SRH-change categories were identified. After covariate adjustment, individuals with polypharmacy had higher odds of being in the stable moderate category (OR 3.55; 95% CI [2.43–5.20]), stable low category (OR 3.32; 95% CI [1.65–6.70]), decline category (OR 1.87; 95% CI [1.34–2.62]), and improvement category (OR 2.01; [1.33–3.05]) compared to being in the stable high category independent of the number of comorbidities. Reducing polypharmacy could be an impactful strategy to foster favorable SRH progression in old age.

Keywords: polypharmacy; self-rated health change; older adults; epidemiology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/5/4159/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/5/4159/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:5:p:4159-:d:1080708

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().