The nursing home population: an opportunity to make advances on research on multimorbidity and polypharmacy.

摘要

Multimorbidity constitutes a challenge for health care professionals. However, as indicated in a report from the US Institute of Medicine (1), evidence-based research on the clinical management of multimorbid patients remains scarce, especially for people 85 years or over (2). This is even more true for multimorbid patients living in nursing homes (NH) (3). Current clinical practices in multimorbid patients living in NHs represent a crude translation from research in other populations (e.g., hospitalized patients, community-dwelling older adults) (4). Yet, NH residents constitute a particular population, with specific care needs (5). Moreover, their health status is partially dependent on NH leadership and internal organization (3). In this Editorial, we discuss the clinical importance and methodological advantages of performing research specifically in NH residents, and the role of the primary care physician for the development of successful clinical research among residents.