A simulation study comparing anticholinergic drug use with polypharmacy for risk of death, dementia, and delirium in UK Biobank.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Polypharmacy and use of anticholinergics are associated with adverse health outcomes. Because these 2 exposures covary, it is not known to what extent the detrimental health effects attributed to anticholinergic burden measured by anticholinergic burden scales (ABS) may be due to polypharmacy.

Methods

Our aims were to evaluate the added effect beyond polypharmacy of (1) anticholinergic use and (2) scores according to existing ABS. We used linked data from the UK Biobank prospective cohort study to investigate drugs prescribed in primary care in the year 2015 (n = ∼200 000; median age = 65 years). We randomly sampled among drugs to create 2000 pseudoscales-drug burden scales designed to reflect the strength of the background effect of polypharmacy. We differentiate

SUBMITTER: Mur J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12643546 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature