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Table 4 Summary of results from chi-square tests to determine significant relationships

From: Polypharmacy and the occurrence of potential drug–drug interactions among geriatric patients at the outpatient pharmacy department of a regional hospital in Durban, South Africa

Gender and polypharmacy

Variable

Number of prescribed medicinesa,b

p value (p < 0.05)

Gender

3–15

 > 15

0.013*

Female

44.8%

22.8%

Male

26.4%

6.0%

The number of diagnosed clinical problems and type of prescriber contact

Variable

Number of diagnosed clinical problemsa

p value (p < 0.05)

Prescriber contact

0–4

5–8

0.013*

Level 2

62.0%

12.8%

Level 3

17.2%

8.0%

Polypharmacy and type of prescriber contact

Variable

Number of prescribed medicinesa

p value (p < 0.05)

Prescriber Contact

3–8

9–14

 > 15

0.01*

Level 2

17.6%

40.0%

17.2

Level 3

2.8%

10.8%

11.6%

Polypharmacy and potential drug–drug interactions

Variable

Number of prescribed medicinesa,b

p value (p < 0.05)

Number of PDDIsa

3–14

 > 15

 < 0.05*

0–20

70.0%

20.4%

 > 21

1.2%

8.4%

Type of prescriber contact and potential drug–drug interactions

Variable

Number of PDDIsa

p value (p < 0.05)

Prescriber Contact

0–20

 > 21

0.014*

Level 2

69.6%

5.2%

Level 3

20.8%

4.4%

  1. aFrequency counts in percentages
  2. bThe number of prescribed medicines was collapsed into two categories, because smaller observations were observed for the categories 3–8 and 9–14 of the number of prescribed medicines when analysed against the number of PDDIs (> 21). This was also to satisfy the assumption of chi-square tests of association which suggests that at least one observation is present in each cell of the table. If not, categories can be collapsed to form meaningful categories [28, 29]
  3. *Statistically Significant results