Description of Common Ailments and Nonprescription Medications Found in Medication Reviews for People With Intellectual Disability.
Chelsea Felkai, Jamie-Lee Carew, David Newby and 1 others
PMID 40274273WHAT IT FOUND
Community pharmacist reviews for 80 people with intellectual disability found an average of 6.6 common ailments and 8 nonprescription medicines each.
Constipation, pain and reflux were most frequent. Paracetamol appeared in 92.5% of lists, and laxatives in 72.5%.
Key findings
01Each medication review listed between six and seven common ailments and an average of eight nonprescription medications.
02Constipation was the most prevalent specific common ailment, followed by nonspecific pain and fever, then gastro-oesophageal reflux disease.
03Paracetamol was found in 92.5% of reviews, although only 27.5% were using it regularly.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The sample of 80 reviews was small and not representative of all people with intellectual disability in Australia, so the prevalence figures should not be applied broadly. Medication reviews focus on products, so conditions that did not require medication, such as incontinence or oral health problems, may have been missed or inconsistently recorded. Some conditions were difficult to categorise because reports listed vague indications like 'for pain' or 'for bones' rather than a formal diagnosis. The study describes what was found in existing reports; it does not test whether any intervention changed these outcomes.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the 78% polypharmacy rate or the high prevalence of specific ailments as evidence that these products are being used incorrectly or that a particular intervention is needed. This study only describes what was recorded in existing medication reviews for a small, non-representative sample; it does not establish a causal link between the ailments and the products, nor does it show that reducing nonprescription use would improve outcomes.