Underuse of indicated medications among physically frail older US veterans at the time of hospital discharge: results of a cross-sectional analysis of data from the Geriatric Evaluation and Management Drug Study.

Background: Medication underutilization, or the omission of a potentially beneficial medication indicated for disease management, is common among older adults but poorly understood.

Objectives: The aims of this work were to assess the prevalence of medication underuse and to determine whether polypharmacy or comorbidity was associated with medication underuse among physically frail older veterans transitioning from the hospital to the community.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional analysis of patients who were discharged from 11 US veterans' hospitals to outpatient care, based on data from the Geriatric Evaluation and Management Drug Study, a substudy of the Veterans Affairs Cooperative Study of geriatric evaluation and management.