OBJECTIVES: The aim of this retrospective study was to investigate the prevalence of multimorbidity and polypharmacy in elderly patients followed in general practices in Germany.

METHODS

: The study was based on data from the Disease Analyzer database (IQVIA) and included patients over the age of 60 who had at least one visit to one of 1,010 general practitioners in Germany between January and June 2017, and at least one additional visit between July and December 2017. The main outcome was the number of chronic conditions per patient documented in 2017 and the number of different drugs taken on any given day in 2017 as a function of age and gender.

RESULTS

: A total of 564,352 patients were available for analysis. The mean number of chronic diseases was 5.3 (SD=4.4) in men and 5.7 (SD=4.6) in women. This number of chronic conditions increased with age and was highest in male patients aged 96-100 (7.2) and in female patients aged 86-90 and 91-95 (6.7). The mean number of prescribed drugs was 4.2 (SD=2.7) in both men and women and went as high as 5.3 in men aged 96-100 years and 5.5 in women aged 91-95 and 96-100 years.

CONCLUSIONS

: Multimorbidity and polypharmacy were highly prevalent in elderly patients followed in general practices in Germany in 2017.