Impact of polypharmacy and the use of medicines associated with the risk of falls in the elderly

Abstract

Objective: to associate polypharmacy and medication classes with the risk of falls in the elderly. Method: cross-sectional and quantitative study, carried out in a Specialty Medical Outpatient Clinic in the city of São Paulo – SP, with 117 elderly people, from March to November 2019. Data collection was carried out by fully transcribing the prescriptions into an individual form and the Downton Falls Risk Scale. To compare the risk of falls with polypharmacy and medication classes, the Mann-Whitney and Chi-Square tests were used. In all comparative analyzes a significance level of 5% and a confidence interval of 95% were used. Results: The risk of falls showed a significant correlation with the number of medications, an average of 5.8 per day (p<0.0001) and the medication classes, antihypertensives (p<0.0001), oral antidiabetics (p=0.027), diuretics (p<0.0001) and antidepressants (p=0.042). Conclusion and implications for practice: therefore, the importance of evaluating factors related to the increased risk of falls is highlighted, for subsequent planning and implementation of strategies to deal with adverse reactions and the measures to be taken to ensure the effectiveness and safety of drug treatment.