BackgroundPolypharmacy is a frequent condition, but its prevalence and determinants in the Swiss mid-aged population are unknown. We aimed to evaluate the prevalence and determinants of polypharmacy in a large Swiss mid-aged population-based sample.MethodsData from 4938 participants of the CoLaus study (53% women, age range 40–81 years) were collected between 2009 and 2012. Polypharmacy was defined by the regular use of five or more drugs.ResultsPolypharmacy was reported by 580 participants [11.8%, 95% confidence interval (10.9; 12.6)]. Participants on polypharmacy were significantly older (mean ± standard deviation: 66.0 ± 9.1 vs. 56.6 ± 10.1 years), more frequently obese (35.9% vs. 14.7%), of lower education (66.6% vs. 50.7%) and former smokers (46.7% vs. 36.4%) than participants not on polypharmacy. These findings were confirmed by multivariate analysis: odds ratio and (95% confidence interval) for age groups 50–64 and 65–81 relative to 40–49 years: 2.90 (2.04; 4.12) and 10.3 (7.26; 14.5), respectively, p for trend < 0.001; for low relative to high education: 1.56 (1.17; 2.07); for overweight and obese relative to normal weight participants: 2.09 (1.65; 2.66) and 4.38 (3.39; 5.66), respectively, p for trend < 0.001; for former and current relative to never smokers: 1.42 (1.14, 1.75) and 1.63 (1.25, 2.12), respectively, p for trend < 0.001.ConclusionOne out of nine participants of our sample is on polypharmacy. Increasing age, body mass index, smoking and lower education independently increase the likelihood of being on polypharmacy.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-017-2793-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background: Little current evidence documents how internal medicine residents spend their time at work, particularly regarding the proportions of time spent in direct patient care versus on computers. Objective: To describe how residents allocate their during day and evening hospital shifts.

Objectives: To assess the prevalence, the change and the determinants of change in polypharmacy in a population-based sample.Methods: Baseline (2003-06) and follow-up (2009-12) data from 4679 participants aged between 35 and 75 years (53.5% women, mean age 52.6 ± 10.6 years) from the population of Lausanne, Switzerland.Polypharmacy was defined by the regular use of ≥5 drugs. Four categories of change were defined: never (no polypharmacy at baseline and follow-up), initiating (no polypharmacy at baseline but at follow-up), maintaining or quitting.Results: Polypharmacy increased from 7.7% at baseline to 15.3% at follow-up. Cardiovascular drugs were the most prescribed medicines at baseline and follow up. Gender, age, obesity, smoking, previously diagnosed hypertension or diabetes or dyslipidemia were significantly and independently associated with initiating and maintaining polypharmacy. Conclusion:In a population-based sample, prevalence of polypharmacy doubled over a 5.6 year period.The main determinants of initiating polypharmacy were age, overweight and obesity, smoking status and previous diagnosed cardiovascular risk factors. Abstract word count: 159

Background: Polypharmacy (PP) and excessive polypharmacy (EPP) are increasingly common and associated with risk of drug-drug interactions (DDIs). We aimed to measure the trends and determinants of PP and DDIs among patients discharged from the

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