OBJECTIVES

Adults with cardiometabolic risk factors have several comorbidities which may result in increased use of multiple medications and hence polypharmacy. Polypharmacy is often associated with lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL). We examined the association between polypharmacy and HRQoL among US adults with cardiometabolic risk factors.

METHODS

Medical Expenditure Panel Survey 2015 data was used to identify adults with at least one of the three cardiometabolic risk factors which comprised of diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension. Polypharmacy was defined as use of at least five classes of prescription medications. HRQoL was determined using the summary scores, physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS), obtained from the 12-item Short Form Health Survey version 2. Mean PCS and MCS scores were estimated for those with and without polypharmacy. Adjusted ordinary least square regressions were conducted to evaluate the association between polypharmacy and HRQoL.

RESULTS

Among 7,621 adults with at least one of the cardiometabolic risk factors (weighted N=79,962,224), 46.9% reported polypharmacy, while 53.1% did not. Among adults with hypertension, 29.7% was polypharmacy, whereas among adults with all the three risk factors, the percentage was substantially higher at 82.4%. The weighted mean PCS scores for those with and without polypharmacy were 39.2 and 48.6, respectively, while the weighted mean MCS scores for those with and without polypharmacy were 49.6 and 52.3, respectively. After adjusting for all the covariates, adults with polypharmacy had significantly lower PCS scores (β = -4.27 (p < 0.0001)) compared to those without polypharmacy. However, there were no significant differences in the MCS scores between those with and without polypharmacy.

CONCLUSIONS

Polypharmacy has negative impact on physical HRQoL in adults with cardiometabolic risk factors. Active surveillance of multiple prescription medication use is needed because of its possible increased association with poorer physical domain of HRQoL in this vulnerable group.