Conceptualising multiple drug use in patients with comorbidity and multimorbidity: proposal for standard definitions beyond the term polypharmacy

With older and ageing populations, patients experience multiple chronic diseases at the same time. Individual chronic disease guidelines often recommend pharmacological therapies as a key intervention, resulting in patients being prescribed multiple regular medications for their different diseases. Whilst the term ‘polypharmacy’ has been applied to the use of multiple medications, there is no consistent definition and this term is now being used all inclusively. To improve both scientific rigor and optimal patient care, it is crucial that a standard terminology is used which reclassifies the term ‘polyp harmacy’ into distinct phenotypes relating to the index chronic disease, additional conditions to the index (‘comorbidity’) or the experience of multiple chronic conditions at the same time (multimorbidity).
Source: Journal of Clinical Epidemiology - Category: Epidemiology Authors: Tags: Commentary Source Type: research