Background:

chronic diseases as they evolve require the use of several medications for their control. This use increases the longer they have been since their diagnosis, a situation that can have a negative impact on the health of patients due to drug interactions.

Objective:

to associate polypharmacy with the main chronic diseases in patients treated in a Peruvian provincial hospital.

Methods:

a descriptive, retrospective and cross-sectional study was carried out, carried out in September 2022, with 159 patients with type 2 diabetes and arterial hypertension treated at the José Hernán Soto Cadenillas Hospital in Chota. Characterization data, drugs consumed and chronic diseases were obtained from the Nominal Register System of patients enrolled in the Hospital. The independent analysis of variables was done using absolute and relative frequencies, 95 % confidence intervals, mean, standard deviation, minimum, maximum and the association between variables with chi-square of independence, with p < 0.05 of statistical significance.

Results:

72.3 % of patients were women, their mean age was 68.6 years, the consumption of 4 drugs was the average for the comorbidity of type 2 diabetes and arterial hypertension, followed by 3 drugs in arterial hypertension, which represented polypharmacy for both cases (30.2 and 23.8 %, respectively). There is a significant statistical association between suffering from chronic disease and polypharmacy (p = 0.002).

Conclusion:

most patients consume 3 or more drugs, especially if they suffer from both diseases, so polypharmacy is significantly associated with the occurrence of chronic diseases.

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