How does polypharmacy impact on the quality of life of older people in New Zealand?

The ageing population is increasing all over the world and people are living longer with multiple diseases thanks to the development of pharmaceuticals and other health care facilities. Older people who suffer from multiple diseases require multiple medications to control the severity of the disease. Polypharmacy can lead to the occurrence of adverse outcomes with prolonged usage. In New Zealand, many older people live with multiple diseases and they require multiple medications to control their diseases. Therefore, polypharmacy (using more than five medications) is prevalent among elderly New Zealanders. METHOD AND DESIGN The purpose of this research was to investigate how polypharmacy impacts on the quality of life of older people in New Zealand. Participants of the study were 65 years or over and take five or more medications daily. To find out about the quality of life of those who take more than five medications, a validated questionnaire called Living with Medicines Questionnaire version 3 (LMQ3) was used. Out of 41 questions, 19 questions were considered for the study and the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) used to measure the level of medication burden. A descriptive statistics method were used to analyse the collected data. RESULTS The mean age of 28 participants was 71.33 and 67% of participants were female. Most of the participants were New Zealand Europeans and taking cardiovascular system-related medications. The majority of the participants claimed that polypharmacy affected neither their social life nor driving. Further, many stated that their medication was working well. But most of them stated that they had concerns about the long- term impact of medication. The VAS showed that they experienced minimum medication related burden. CONCLUSION According to the findings of other literature which were written about polypharmacy in other countries, polypharmacy has a both positive and negative impact on older persons’ quality of life. However, in this study, polypharmacy did not impact on the quality of participants’ lives.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Nursing

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Grantor

Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT)

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Weerasinghe Mudiyanselage, Nadeeka Priyadarshani Weerasinghe

• New Zealand
• older people
• polypharmacy
• quality of life
• multiple medications
• multiple diseases
• drug burden
• drug-drug interaction
• potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs)
• Likert Scale
• side effects
• surveys

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright is owned by the author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purposes of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced anywhere without permission of the author

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10652/5354

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:null:10652/5354