- Title
- Common combinations of medications used among oldest-old women: a population-based study over 15 years
- Creator
- Thiruchelvam, Kaeshaelya; Byles, Julie; Hasan, Syed Shahzad; Egan, Nicholas; Cavenagh, Dominic; Kairuz, Therese
- Relation
- Aging Clinical and Experimental Research Vol. 33, Issue 7, p. 1919-1928
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40520-020-01693-y
- Publisher
- Springer Nature Switzerland AG
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Background: Older people use many medications, but combinations of medications used among the oldest old (≥ 80 years) are not commonly reported. Aims: This study aimed to determine common combinations of medications used among women aged 77–96 years and to describe characteristics associated with these combinations. Methods: A cohort study of older women enroled in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health over a 15-year period was used to determine combinations of medications using latent class analysis. Multinomial logistic regression was used to determine characteristics associated with these combinations. Results: The highest medication users during the study were for the cardiovascular (2003: 80.28%; 2017: 85.63%) and nervous (2003: 66.03%; 2017: 75.41%) systems. A 3-class latent model described medication use combinations: class 1: ‘Cardiovascular & neurology anatomical group’ (27.25%) included participants using medications of the cardiovascular and nervous systems in their later years; class 2: ‘Multiple anatomical group’ (16.49%) and class 3: ‘Antiinfectives & multiple anatomical group’ (56.27%). When compared to the reference class (class 1), the risk of participants being in class 3 was slightly higher than being in class 2 if they had > 4 general practitioner visits (RRR 2.37; 95% CI 2.08, 2.71), Department of Veterans Affairs’ coverage (RRR 1.59; 95% CI 1.36, 1.86), ≥ 4 chronic diseases (RRR 3.16; 95% CI 2.56, 3.90) and were frail (RRR 1.47; 95% CI 1.27, 1.69). Conclusion: Identification of combinations of medication use may provide opportunities to develop multimorbidity guidelines and target medication reviews, and may help reduce medication load for older individuals.
- Subject
- ageing; older people; medication combinations; medication pattern; medication use
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1447546
- Identifier
- uon:43185
- Identifier
- ISSN:1594-0667
- Language
- eng
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