Concordance Among 10 Different Anticholinergic Burden Scales in At-Risk Older Populations

Objective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the concordance among 10 anticholinergic scales for the measurement of anticholinergic drug ex posure in at-risk elderly complex chronic patients in primary care. Methods: An 8-month cross-sectional, multicenter study was carried out in a cohort of com...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Villalba Moreno, Ángela María, Villalba Moreno, Ángela, Santos Rubio, María Dolores, Belda Rustarazo, Susana, Santos Ramos, Bernardo, Sánchez Fidalgo, Susana
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/144933
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/144933
https://doi.org/10.1097/PTS.0000000000000929
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Anticholinergic agents
Anticholinergic burden scales
Comorbidity
Concordance
Older complex chronic patients
Descripción
Sumario:Objective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the concordance among 10 anticholinergic scales for the measurement of anticholinergic drug ex posure in at-risk elderly complex chronic patients in primary care. Methods: An 8-month cross-sectional, multicenter study was carried out in a cohort of complex chronic patients older than 65 years in treatment with at least 1 drug with anticholinergic activity. Demographic, pharmaco logical, and clinical data were collected. Anticholinergic burden and risk were detected using the 10 scales included on the anticholinergic burden calculator (http://www.anticholinergicscales.es/). We used κ statistics to evaluated the concordance 2 to 2 (according to risk: high, medium, low or without risk) among the included scales. Results: Four hundred seventy-three patients were recruited (60.3% fe male, median age of 84 years [interquartile range = 10]). Eighty was the to tal number of anticholinergic drugs with any scale (1197 prescriptions), with a median of 2 drugs with anticholinergic activity per patient (inter quartile range = 2). The κ statistics comparing all the 10 scales ranged from −0.175 (Drug Burden Index versus Chew Scale) to 0.708 (Anticholinergic Activity Scale [AAS] versus Chew Scale). The best concordance was ob tained between AAS and Chew Scale (κ = 0.708), followed by Clinician Rated Anticholinergic Scale and Duran Scale (κ = 0.632) and AAS and Anticholinergic Cognitive Burden Scale (κ = 0.618), being considered sub stantial strengths of concordance. Conclusions: The agreement among the 10 scales in elderly patients with complex chronic conditions was highly variable. Great care should be taken when assessing anticholinergic drug exposure using existing scales because of the wide variability among them. The only scales that showed agreement were the AAS-Chew, Clinician-Rated Anticholinergic Scale– Duran, and AAS–Anticholinergic Cognitive Burden Scale pairs. In the rest of the cases, the scales are not interchangeable.