Baseline patient characteristics at admission
| Characteristic | No. (%) of patients* | p value | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Without PPI n = 799 | With PPI n = 1080 | ||
| Age, yr, mean ± SD | 79.5 ± 6.2 | 79.3 ± 6.4 | 0.39 |
| Sex, female | 325 (40.7) | 510 (47.2) | 0.005 |
| Surgical ward | 131 (16.4) | 172 (15.9) | 0.78 |
| Charlson Comorbidity Index, mean ± SD | 2.5 ± 2.0 | 2.9 ± 2.1 | 0.002 |
| No. of chronic medications at admission, mean ± SD | 8.7 ± 3.4 | 11.3 ± 4.4 | < 0.001 |
| OPERAM intervention arm | 372 (46.6) | 534 (49.4) | 0.22 |
| Study site | < 0.001 | ||
| Belgium (Louvain) | 122 (15.3) | 284 (26.3) | |
| Ireland (Cork) | 187 (23.4) | 151 (14.0) | |
| The Netherlands (Utrecht) | 116 (14.5) | 214 (19.8) | |
| Switzerland (Bern) | 374 (46.8) | 431 (39.9) | |
| Potential PPI indication† | 406 (50.8) | 584 (54.1) | 0.16 |
| Gastrointestinal bleeding | 4 (0.5) | 4 (0.4) | 0.67 |
| Gastroduodenal ulcer | 12 (1.5) | 30 (2.8) | 0.06 |
| Barrett esophagus | 0 | 1 (0.1) | 0.38 |
| Acute gastritis | 0 | 0 | NA |
| Gastroesophageal reflux disease | 13 (1.6) | 52 (4.8) | < 0.001 |
| Helicobacter pylori infection | 0 | 1 (0.1) | 0.39 |
| Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug | 54 (6.7) | 91 (8.4) | 0.18 |
| Antiplatelet cotherapy | 361 (45.2) | 513 (47.5) | 0.32 |
Note: NA = not applicable, OPERAM = Optimizing Therapy to Prevent Avoidable Hospital Admissions in Multimorbid Older Adults, SD = standard deviation.
↵* Unless indicated otherwise.
↵† The sum of all potential PPI indications is more than the number of patients with a potential PPI indication, because some patients had more than 1 indication.