A re-audit of polypharmacy recognition in older patients on admission to an acute hospital

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dc.contributor.authorCronin, Matthewen
dc.contributor.authorMcMahon, Ivannaen
dc.contributor.authorIbrahim, Ahmeden
dc.contributor.authorAzizan, Nurulen
dc.contributor.authorAziz, Rizwanen
dc.contributor.editorMehta, Shobhaen
dc.contributor.editorCronin, Pádraigen
dc.date.accessioned2025-10-28T13:55:04Z
dc.date.available2025-10-28T13:55:04Z
dc.date.issued2025en
dc.description.abstractBackground: Polypharmacy has a high overall prevalence of approximately 37%. Left unrecognised, polypharmacy can increase the risk of drug-drug interactions and lead to prescribing cascades. Prompt recognition and management of polypharmacy is essential as it may represent a reversible cause of a patient’s symptoms. Methods: A re-audit of polypharmacy recognition in Bantry General Hospital was performed. Patients were included if they were aged seventy-five years or older, prescribed 5 or more medications on admission and were in-patients during a 24-hour period on the 10th of September 2024. The presence or absence of polypharmacy as a diagnosis was recorded. Results: 25 patients were identified as eligible for inclusion. 17 male patients (68%) and 8 female (32%) were included. The median age was 82 years old and ages ranged from 75-99. Polypharmacy was included as a diagnosis in only one of the 25 patients’ admissions (4%), this is a marginal increase from 0 (0%) in the previous audit. The mean number of m– 15. The maximum number of prescribed medications reduced from 21 to 15 in the re-audit. Conclusion: Marginal improvements in the volume of polypharmacy and polypharmacy documentation were observed in this re-audit, however, further efforts are required to reduce this problem. It is important to recognise and document polypharmacy in older patients to reduce the potential for adverse outcomes.en
dc.description.statusNot peer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationCronin, M., McMahon, I., Ibrahim, A., Azizan, N. and Aziz, R. (2025) 'A re-audit of polypharmacy recognition in older patients on admission to an acute hospital', UCC Student Medical Journal, 5, p. 107. https://doi.org/10.33178/SMJ.2025.1.33en
dc.identifier.doi10.33178/SMJ.2025.1.33en
dc.identifier.endpage107en
dc.identifier.issn2737-7237
dc.identifier.journalabbrevUCC SMJ
dc.identifier.journaltitleUCC Student Medical Journalen
dc.identifier.startpage107en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/18110
dc.identifier.volume5
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherUCC Medical Research and Technology Societyen
dc.rights© 2025, the Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
dc.sourceBatch uploaden
dc.subjectPolypharmacyen
dc.subjectOlder patientsen
dc.subjectAcute hospitalen
dc.titleA re-audit of polypharmacy recognition in older patients on admission to an acute hospitalen
dc.typeConference itemen
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