PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Caroline Sirois
AU  - Véronique Boiteau
AU  - Yohann Chiu
AU  - Rodica Gilca
AU  - Marc Simard
TI  - Exploring the associations between polypharmacy and COVID-19-related hospitalisations and deaths: a population-based cohort study among older adults in Quebec, Canada
AID  - 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-060295
DP  - 2022 Mar 01
TA  - BMJ Open
PG  - e060295
VI  - 12
IP  - 3
4099  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/3/e060295.short
4100  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/3/e060295.full
SO  - BMJ Open2022 Mar 01; 12
AB  - Objectives To study the association between polypharmacy and the risk of hospitalisation and death in cases of COVID-19 in the population over the age of 65.Design Population-based cohort study.Setting Quebec Integrated Chronic Disease Surveillance System, composed of five medico-administrative databases, in the province of Quebec, Canada.Participants 32 476 COVID-19 cases aged over 65 whose diagnosis was made between 23 February 2020 and 15 March 2021, and who were covered by the public drug insurance plan (thus excluding those living in long-term care). We counted the number of different medications they claimed between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2020.Outcome measures Robust Poisson regression was used to calculate relative risk of hospitalisation and death associated with the use of multiple medications, adjusting for age, sex, chronic conditions, material and social deprivation and living environment.Results Of the 32 476 COVID-19 cases included, 10 350 (32%) were hospitalised and 4146 (13%) died. Compared with 0–4 medications, polypharmacy exposure was associated with increased hospitalisations, with relative risks ranging from 1.11 (95% CI 1.04 to 1.19) for those using 5–9 medications to 1.62 (95% CI 1.51 to 1.75) for those using 20+. Similarly, the risk of death increased with the number of medications, from 1.13 (95% CI 0.99 to 1.30) for those using (5–9 medications to 1.97 (95% CI 1.70 to 2.27) (20+). Increased risk was mainly observed in younger groups.Conclusions Polypharmacy was significantly associated with the risk of hospitalisations and deaths related to COVID-19 in this cohort of older adults. Polypharmacy may represent a marker of vulnerability, especially for younger groups of older adults.Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. Data are not publicly available.