Table 5.
Pharmacological data comparison between patients with and without polypharmacy.
| N | Polypharmacy (all medications) | Polypharmacy (long-term medications only) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pw/oP | PwP | Statistics | Pw/oP | PwP | Statistics | |
| 133 | 173 | 177 | 129 | |||
| All medicationsa | 2.6 (1.0) | 8.1 (2.9) | z = −15.075, p < 0.001U | 3.4 (1.8) | 8.8 (2.9) | z = −13.655, p < 0.001U |
| Long-term medicationsa | 2.0 (1.0) | 6.4 (3.0) | z = −13.040, p < 0.001U | 2.2 (1.1) | 7.6 (2.5) | z = −15.050, p < 0.001U |
| PRN drugsa | 0.6 (0.8) | 1.7 (1.5) | z = −7.154, p < 0.001U | 1.2 (1.5) | 1.2 (1.2) | z = −1.385, p = 0.166U |
| Prescription-only drugsa | 2.0 (1.0) | 6.5 (2.9) | z = −13.855, p < 0.001U | 2.6 (1.6) | 7.1 (2.9) | z = −12.859, p < 0.001U |
| OTC drugsa | 0.6 (0.7) | 1.6 (1.5) | z = −7.280, p < 0.001U | 0.8 (0.9) | 1.7 (1.5) | z = −6.367, p < 0.001U |
| DMDa | 0.9 (0.3) | 1.0 (0.4) | z = −1.013, p = 0.311U | 1.0 (0.4) | 1.0 (0.3) | z = −0.344, p = 0.731U |
| Symptomatic drugsa | 0.5 (0.7) | 3.0 (1.8) | z = −11.990, p < 0.001U | 1.0 (1.3) | 3.2 (1.9) | z = −10.301, p < 0.001U |
| Comorbidity drugsa | 1.1 (0.9) | 4.1 (2.6) | z = −11.561, p < 0.001U | 1.5 (1.2) | 4.7 (2.7) | z = −11.365, p < 0.001U |
DMD, disease-modifying drugs; N, number of patients; OTC, over-the-counter; PRN, pro re nata; PwP, patients with polypharmacy; Pw/oP, patients without polypharmacy.
aMean value (standard deviation) of the number of drugs taken per patient; UMann-Whitney U test.