Polypharmacy and diabetes mellitus in seniors in social institutions

Czech version

Authors: I. Bartošovič ¹; K. Zrubáková ²
Authors‘ workplace: Vysoká škola zdravotníctva a sociálnej práce sv. Alžbety, Bratislava, Rektor: dr. h. c. prof. MUDr. Vladimír Krčméry, DrSc. ¹; Katolícka univerzita Ružomberok, Rektor: doc. Ing. Jaroslav Demko, CSc., Fakulta zdravotníctva, Dekan: prof. MUDr. Anton Lacko, CSc. ²
Published in: Prakt. Lék. 2020; 100(6): 301-305
Category: Of different specialties

Overview

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is the most significant metabolic disease in old age.

Methods: As of 31 October 2019, 237 residents with an average age of 80.5 years lived in two facilities for the elderly, 63 (26.6%) out of them men and 174 (73.4%) women. Among seniors, there were 84 residents (35.4%) who had diabetes mellitus and 19 seniors (8%) with pre-diabetic conditions. We divided the whole population into two groups: a group of 103 residents (43.5%) with diabetes and pre-diabetic conditions and a group of the remaining 134 (56.5%) seniors who were not treated for diabetes or pre-diabetic conditions. Data on diabetes treatment, the average number of regular medications, polypharmacy (regular use of 5 or more drugs and regular use of 5 to 9 drugs) and excessive polypharmacy (regular use of 10 or more drugs) were obtained from the population’s medical records and verified in drug books using e-Health. We statistically evaluated the files using Student’s t-test and χ²-test in contingency tables.

Results: In the group of 84 diabetics, 33 seniors (39.3%) were treated with insulin, 25 residents (29.7%) were treated with peroral antidiabetics, 13 residents (15.5%) were treated with a combination of insulin and oral antidiabetics and 13 seniors (15.5%) were without pharmacotherapy. Seniors with diabetes and pre-diabetic conditions regularly took on average more drugs (10.49) than other seniors (7.6). The differences were statistically significant. Five or more drugs were used by 95.1% of the population with diabetes and glucose homeostasis, compared with 81.3% of the population of non-diabetics. Excessive polypharmacy occurred twice as often in the group of people with diabetes and prediabetes (60.8%) compared to other seniors (30.3%).

Keywords:

seniors – elderly – diabetes mellitus – polypharmacy – polypharmacotherapy – institutions

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