Objective: This study was performed to assess and establish prevalence of polypharmacy in geriatric population, to identify adverse drug reactions due to polypharmacy and to investigate whether polypharmacy is an indicator for occurrence of unnecessary drug therapy.

Materials and Methods: This prospective observational study was carried out in the General Medicine department of a tertiary care hospital, demographic data, medical and medication history were collected from patient’s case sheets. Then collected information was analysed according to their age, gender and therapeutic category. Beers criteria is used to identify potentially inappropriate medications and Causality assessment of all Adverse drug reactions was done by using Naranjo ADR scale. Unnecessary drug therapy classified into No medical indication, No drug therapy was more recommended and duplicate therapy. Basic statistic tools were used to analysis the data with help of Graph Pad Prism software, values were expressed as actual numbers and percentage.

Results: Our study results showed that out of 100 patients included in the study, 66% of them were females and 34% were males and 30% of the patients received more than ten drugs. Distribution of drugs associated with unnecessary drug therapy-belong to gastrointestinal, cardiovascular system and respiratory system accounting for 64% of total medication Most common adverse drug reactions are confusion, constipation, palpitations, tremors and abdominal pain. Drug classes most commonly implicated in adverse drug reactions are sedatives, anticholinergic, opioids, antihypertensive drugs and respiratory system drugs Potentially harmful drugs recognised in this study according to Beers criteria are Amiptrytiline, dicyclomine, Danazol, Nandrolone and Aceclofenac.

Conclusion: As polypharmacy increases the risk of ADRs and inappropriate medication use in elderly, efforts should be made to improve the prescribing practices and health care professionals should be aware of the risks and fully evaluate all medications at each patient visit to prevent polypharmacy from occurring. 

Keywords: Polypharmacy; Beers Criteria; Adverse Drug Reactions; Unnecessary Drug Therapy.