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During the congress, E-Posters will be accessible to all participants on the congress website 24/7, as well as in the E-poster stations in the congress center.
Preparing your E-Poster
Please review the E-Poster format requirements carefully when preparing your E-Poster. Should your E-Poster not meet the mentioned requirements, it may not be displayed as described above.
E-Poster Submission Deadline
Please prepare and upload your E-Poster no later than March 14, 2026 11.59PM CET. After this date, you will no longer be able to prepare and upload your E-poster and it will not be displayed and accessible on the congress website.
Please follow the instructions below to input your abstract title.
Abstract titles should be brief and reflect the content of the abstract.
People living with chronic kidney disease (CKD) frequently manage a number of comorbid conditions and require multiple medications (i.e., polypharmacy). Polypharmacy is a growing concern globally and is associated with adverse health outcomes including falls/fractures and increased acute care utilization. Unfortunately, there is limited research exploring its burden and consequences in CKD. In this study, we used data from the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network to determine the burden of polypharmacy in people living with CKD managed by primary care providers and how this varies by CKD stage and patient demographics.
We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study of adults with CKD stages 3-5, between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2018 managed in primary care. CKD was defined by at least two estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) measurements <60 mL/min/1.73m2 recorded 3 months apart. Cohort entry occurred on the date of the second qualifying eGFR measure. We defined polypharmacy and excessive polypharmacy as the presence of >=5 and >=10 unique prescriptions, respectively, based on the Anatomical Therapeutical Chemical (ATC) classification system. Prevalence of polypharmacy was estimated across CKD stages (G3a: 45-59; G3b: 30-44; G4: 15-29; G5: <15 mL/min/1.73m2) and by age and sex.
We identified 80,103 people living with CKD stages G3a - G5 (mean [SD] age, 61.8 [16.5] years; 71.9% (n=57,607) females) during the study timeframe. The prevalence of polypharmacy and excessive polypharmacy at cohort entry was 37.3% (n=29,879) and 11.4% (n=9,171) respectively. The prevalence of polypharmacy and excessive polypharmacy decreased with increasing CKD stages, except in G5 (e.g., 39.0% in G3a, 35.4% in G3b, 34.0% in G4 and 35.8% in G5 for polypharmacy) and increased with increasing age (e.g., 17.9% in 18-44, 30.5% in 45-64 and 50.0% in 65+ for polypharmacy). Prevalence of polypharmacy at cohort entry was similar for males (37.4%) and females (37.3%).
The burden of polypharmacy in Canadian adults living with CKD managed by primary care providers varies by CKD stage and age. Concerted efforts are needed to measure and manage potentially harmful polypharmacy, considering the growing number of therapeutic options available for this population.
