Abstracts / Posters
The impact of obesity on polypharmacy
Obesity Reviews. 2004 Vol 5 S1
The Counterweight Project Team
Aims: To determine the impact of obesity on polypharmacy in the primary care setting.
Methods: The Counterweight Programme is a national multi-centre initiative aimed at auditing and improving obesity management in primary care. 1150 obese patients (Body Mass Index, BMI>30 kg/m2) and 1150 age and sex-matched normal weight controls (BMI 18.5<25 kg/m2) were randomly selected from primary care registers and data was collected on all prescriptions issued over an 18 month period. Individual drugs were “mapped” onto their root drug e.g. Ceporex and Keflex were both “mapped” onto the root drug cefalexin. To assess the impact of obesity on “polypharmacy”, numbers of patients receiving at least 4 different root drugs over the 18 month period were calculated.
Results: 615 (53.5%) obese patients received at least 4 root drugs over the 18 month period compared with 436 (37.9%) in the normal weight group. Age, sex, deprivation category of prescribing practice, presence of co-morbidity and increasing degree of obesity all had a significant influence on results. In addition a statistically significant increase on level of polypharmacy was noted with increasing degree of obesity even after adjustment for age, sex, deprivation score and presence of co-morbidity.
Conclusions: Obesity has an additional impact on prescribing over and above the prescribing consequences related to clinical conditions associated with obesity.