%0 Journal Article
%T Medication Risks and Their Association with Patient-Reported Outcomes in Inpatients with Cancer.
%A Günther M
%A Schuler M
%A Hentschel L
%A Salm H
%A Schmitz MT
%A Jaehde U
%J Cancers (Basel)
%V 16
%N 11
%D 2024 May 31
%M 38893228
%F 6.575
%R 10.3390/cancers16112110
%X BACKGROUND: We aimed to assess medication risks and determine factors influencing the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in cancer inpatients.
METHODS: A retrospective analysis was conducted to identify drug-related problems (DRPs) based on medication reviews, including patient-reported outcomes (PROs). Multiple linear regression analyses were performed to identify sociodemographic, disease-related, and drug therapy-related factors influencing changes from hospital admission to discharge in the scales of the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire.
RESULTS: A total of 162 inpatients with various hematological and solid cancer diseases was analyzed. Patients received a mean of 11.6 drugs and 92.6% of patients exhibited polymedication resulting in a mean of 4.0 DRPs per patient. Based on PRO data, 21.5% of DRPs were identified. Multiple linear regression models described the variance of the changes in global HRQOL and physical function in a weak-to-moderate way. While drug therapy-related factors had no influence, relapse status and duration of hospital stay were identified as significant covariates for global HRQOL and physical function, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS: This analysis describes underlying DRPs in a German cancer inpatient population. PROs provided valuable information for performing medication reviews. The multiple linear regression models for global HRQOL and physical function provided explanations for changes during hospital stay.