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Age and Ageing 2005 34(6):626-632; doi:10.1093/ageing/afi202
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Medication management at home: medication-related risk factors associated with poor health outcomes

Lene Sorensen1, Julie A. Stokes1, David M. Purdie2, Michael Woodward3 and Michael S. Roberts1

1 Therapeutics Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia
2 Northern California Cancer Center, California, USA
3 Aged and Residential Care Services, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia

Address correspondence to: L. Sorensen at Pharmakon, Milnersvej 42, 3400 Hillerod, Denmark. Email: LES{at}pharmakon.dk

Background: some patients may have medication-related risk factors only identified by home visits, but the extent to which those risk factors are associated with poor health outcomes remains unclear.

Objective: to determine the association between medication-related risk factors and poor patient health outcomes from observations in the patients’ homes.

Design: cross-sectional study.

Setting: patients’ homes.

Subjects: 204 general practice patients living in their own homes and at risk of medication-related poor health outcomes.

Methods: medications and medication-related risk factors were identified in the patients’ homes by community pharmacists and general practitioners (GPs). The medication-related risk factors were examined as determinants of patients’ self-reported health related quality of life (SF-36) and their medication use, as well as physicians’ impression of patient adverse drug events and health status.

Results: key medication-related risk factors associated with poor health outcomes included: Lack of any medication administration routine, therapeutic duplication, hoarding, confusion between generic and trade names, multiple prescribers, discontinued medication repeats retained and multiple storage locations. Older age and female gender were associated with some poorer health outcomes. In addition, expired medication and poor adherence were also associated with poor health outcomes, however, not independently.

Conclusion: the findings support the theory that polypharmacy and medication-related risk factors as a result of polypharmacy are correlated to poor health outcomes.

Keywords: medication, risk factors, in-home, elderly

Received July 13, 2004; accepted in revised form August 24, 2005.


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