Journal 27

Answers to previous questions:
I looked through my proposal again and made some adjustments for the final draft. I also found that my references were lacking so I'll need to do some work on that aspect of the proposal before Monday.

New Information Found:
I found a new article that looked at the indicators of polypharmacy. This article was unique because it looked at indicators which lead to a patient who did not currently have polypharmacy developing polypharmacy by the end of the study. Among these indicators were a few health conditions that were positively associated with the development of polypharmacy:

coronary ischaemic diseases (lack of blood supply to the heart)
heart failure
hypertension (high blood pressure)
asthma
osteoarthritis
atrial fibrillation (heart condition)
dementia
esophagus and stomach diseases
depression

These types of findings are important because they give physicians the ability to focus polypharmacy prevention efforts on specific groups. This study was conducted in the Netherlands and their definition of polypharmacy included anyone taking two or more drugs, so it's different in those aspects.

Questions from this information:
Have these findings been replicated in the United States?
Are there more conditions that are indicators of the development of polypharmacy? It would be good to put together a list so I could test my data against it to see if the same condition are indicators of polypharmacy in my population.

Keywords:
indicators of polypharmacy, health conditions, Netherlands