Using the Drug Burden Index to identify older adults at highest risk for medication-related falls

BMC Geriatrics

Table 1 Bivariate relationships between Drug Burden Index and outcome variables

Variable^†		n	%	DBI Score Mean^‡ (SD)	DBI Score Median^‡ (IQR)
1+ medication recommendations communicated to prescriber after medication review (n = 387)	Yes	171	44.2	1.20 (1.03)^*	0.95 (1.18)^*
	No	216	55.8	0.69 (0.82)	0.46 (0.91)
Screened Positive (n = 1058)	Yes	609	57.6	0.98 (1.00)*	0.66 (1.17)*
Screened Positive (n = 1058)	No	449	42.4	0.59 (0.74)	0.32 (0.92)
1+ fall within the past year (n = 1057)	Yes	312	29.5	1.11 (1.05)*	0.87 (1.19)*
1+ fall within the past year (n = 1057)	No	745	70.5	0.69 (0.82)	0.46 (0.97)
1+ injurious fall within the past year (n = 1057)	Yes	170	16.1	1.17 (1.05)*	0.95 (1.20)*
1+ injurious fall within the past year (n = 1057)	No	887	83.9	0.75 (0.87)	0.50 (1.02)

^† For the medication recommendation variable, n is limited to patients who received a medication review. N varies across screening questions due to missing data
^‡Differences involving means and medians were evaluated using independent group t-tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests, respectively. SD Standard Deviation, IQR Interquartile range
^*P < 0.0001

ISSN: 1471-2318