Background: Polypharmacy is prevalent in older adults and has been associated with iatrogenic harm.Deprescribing has been promoted to reduce polypharmacy. It remains however unclear whether deprescribing during hospital stay can reduce the readmission risk.Objective: We sought to determine whether deprescribing in geriatric inpatients was associated with a lower readmission risk at three months post-discharge.Method: A case control study was performed, using data from a prospective, controlled study in geriatric inpatients. Deprescribing was defined as the percentage of discontinued preadmission medications and was assessed upon discharge. A logistic regression analysis was used to determine the odds ratio for deprescribing and the outcome of readmissions. An adjusted odds ratio was then estimated, taking into account age, sex, mortality, the number of preadmission medications and the Charlson Comorbidity Index.Results: Data of 166 patients were analysed, of whom 61 had experienced at least one readmission. Adjusting for age, number of preadmission medications and mortality resulted in the most informative regression model, based on the lowest Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) (adjusted odds ratio: 0.981, 95% confidence interval: 0.964 to 0.998). Conclusion:Deprescribing in geriatric inpatients was associated with a reduced readmission risk at three months post-discharge.

Aims We aimed to assess the prevalence, components and evolution of polypharmacy and to evaluate risk factors associated with polypharmacy. Methods A retrospective dynamic cohort study was performed, using a primary healthcare database comprising Flemish community‐dwelling adults aged ≥40 years between 2011 and 2015. Polypharmacy and excessive polypharmacy were defined as the use of 5‐9 or minimum 10 different medications during 1 year, respectively. Temporal changes were analysed using an autoregressive error model. Risk factors for polypharmacy were evaluated using logistic regression. Results In total, 68 426 patients were included in the analysis. The prevalence of polypharmacy was 29.5% and 16.1% for excessive polypharmacy in 2015. The age‐standardised prevalence rate of patients using minimum five medications increased with 1.3% per year (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.1968‐2.4279). The mean number of unplanned hospital admissions was 0.07 (standard deviation (SD) 0.33) for polypharmacy patients and 0.19 (SD 0.53) for excessive polypharmacy patients. Four risk factors were found to be significantly correlated with polypharmacy: age (odds ratio (OR) 1.015; 95% CI: 1.013‐1.017), female gender (OR 1.161; 95% CI: 1.108‐1.216), number of chronic diseases (OR 1.126; 95% CI: 1.114‐1.139) and number of general practitioner contacts (OR 1.283; 95% CI: 1.274‐1.292). Conclusion The prevalence of polypharmacy increased between 2011 and 2015. Polypharmacy and excessive polypharmacy patients appeared to differ based on our observations of characteristics, drug therapy and outcomes. Age, female gender, number of chronic diseases and number of general practitioner contacts were associated with polypharmacy.

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