At present, there is no clear and universal definition of polypharmacy. This review summarises the most common definitions and discusses the challenges in finding one suitable definition. Most of the literature has defined polypharmacy as the simultaneous use of five or more drugs. It is known that polypharmacy can lead to an increased risk of adverse health outcomes. However, a lot of medicine is not necessarily too much medicine. Preferentially, a definition should therefore differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate polypharmacy. As a universal definition has not yet been established, it is important to consider the definition used in the literature describing polypharmacy.
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