Table 2.
Patient background characteristics and total number of medications
| Total no. of patients n = 8080 |
|
|---|---|
| Sex, n (%) | |
| Male | 3668 (45.4) |
| Female | 4412 (54.6) |
| Age, n (%), years | |
| 75–84 | 6009 (74.4) |
| 85 and above | 2071 (25.6) |
| No. of prescribing physicians per patient, n (%) | |
| 1 | 6251 (77.4) |
| 2 | 1365 (16.9) |
| 3 | 361 (4.5) |
| 4 | 77 (1.0) |
| 5 | 20 (0.2) |
| 6 | 6 (0.1) |
| Departments, n (%)a | |
| Neurosurgery | 1795 (17.1) |
| General internal medicine | 1715 (16.3) |
| Orthopedic surgery | 1358 (12.9) |
| Ophthalmology | 1322 (12.6) |
| Cardiovascular medicine | 883 (8.4) |
| Others | 3435 (32.7) |
| Bed no. of medical facilities, n (%)a | |
| 300 and more | 3518 (33.5) |
| 100–299 | 2075 (19.7) |
| 99 and less | 4915 (46.8) |
| No. of prescribed drugs per patient, median (IQR), [max] | |
| Overall | 4 (2–7) [28] |
| Chronic-phase systemic drugs | 3 (1–6) [25] |
IQR interquartile range
an = 10,508 was the total number of prescriptions, including multiple prescriptions per patient