Table 5.
Correlations between the number of medications, age, sex, number of chronic diseases, and potential drug-drug interactions (pDDI)
|
|
Number of medications taken by patients |
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age, median min-max (years) | ≤4 | 5-7 | ≥8 | p |
|
|
68 ± 6.2
68 |
68.0 ± 6.2
67.5 |
68.3 ± 6.8
69 |
0.991‡ |
|
Sex, n (%)
|
|
|
|
|
| women |
57 (39.9) |
24 (52.2) |
13 (54.2) |
0.197§ |
| men |
86 (60.1) |
22 (47.8) |
11 (45.8) |
|
|
Number of chronic diseases, average ± SD; median |
2.49 ± 0.71
2*† |
3.72 ± 0.93
4† |
4.79 ± 1.52
4 |
<0.001‡ |
| Total interactions, average ± SD; median | 0.49 ± 0.8 1*† | 3.54 ± 2.5 3.5† | 10.87 ± 8.5 8 | <0.001‡ |
*Difference compared with patients taking 5-7 medications, P < 0.05.
†Difference compared with patients taking ≥8 medications, P < 0.05.
‡Kruskal-Wallis (Mann-Whitney u test).
§χ2 test (Fisher’s test).