Antihypertensive overtreatment in people 80 years old and older

Abstract Background and objective To study the proportion of patients older than 80 years old with hypertension and pharmacological overtreatment. Patients and methods Cross-sectional simulation study, including 281 patients older than 80 years old of primary prevention, randomly selected, with good control of hypertension (systolic blood pressure  Results The average age was 85.3 years (64.8% women). A percentage of 33.6 were taking one medication, 46.3% 2 and 22.1% 3, with the most prescribed being thiazides (69.4%), ACE inhibitors (51.3%), ARBs (23.4%), calcium antagonists (21%) and beta blockers (19.6%). Overtreatment was 90.7%, with 2 medications being able to be removed in 63.1% of cases and 3 in 43.1%. Polypharmacy (OR 2.47; 95% CI 1.07–5.69; p  = 0.033) was associated with a greater likely removal of at least one medication. Conclusions The proportion of patients with overtreatment is high. Changing good control criteria could contribute to a reasoned deprescription.