There are numerous definitions of polypharmacy to describe the use of many medications\namong older adults, but there is a need to clarify if they are purposive and meaningful. By means of\na systematic review, we identified definitions of polypharmacy used in multimorbid older adults\n(Greater than equal to 65 years). We evaluated if the definitions align among the domains of research, clinical practice,\nand public health and appraised whether concepts of polypharmacy are based on strong foundations.\nMore than 46 definitions of polypharmacy were retrieved from 348 publications (research: n = 243;\nclinical practice: n = 88; public health: n = 17). Several thresholds based on the number of medications\nwere mentioned. The majority of the publications (n = 202, 58%) used a minimal threshold of five\nmedications. Heterogeneous qualitative definitions were identified, mostly stating that polypharmacy\nis â??more drugs than neededâ?. There was no significant divergence between domains as to the type of\ndefinitions used, although qualitative definitions were more common in clinical practice.....................
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