Patients wait to receive treatment at a university hospital in Seoul in this file photo from Aug. 28. Newsis

Korea is seeing an increasing number of patients with polypharmacy, or those who take multiple prescription drugs, while its population is aging rapidly, data showed, Friday.

According to the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS), the number of patients who were diagnosed with more than one chronic disease and took over 10 types of prescription drugs for more than 60 days reached 1.36 million as of June. By age group, those over 60 acounted for about 90 percent at over 1.22 million.

The number of patients with polypharmacy here has been constantly on the rise. The figure grew from 932,730 in 2019 to 1.08 million in 2021, then continued to go up to 11.7 million in 2022 and 1.29 million in 2023.

As of this year, about 2.6 percent of the entire population takes multiple drugs and the rate is expected to increase further.

Notably, Korea is far ahead of other countries in the number of patients with polypharmacy. The rate of patients with polypharmacy aged over 75 stands at 70.2 percent as of 2019, significantly higher than the OECD average of 45.7 percent.

Studies show that patients with polypharmacy have a higher risk of harmful effects, such as medication errors, adverse drug reactions, falls, dizziness and increases in hospitalization and mortality.

Polypharmacy in older patients could even trigger health problems more serious than treatment of the disease, due to degradation of their drug metabolizing activity and renal excretory function.

In response, experts have called to prioritize medication safety in polypharmacy and reduce avoidable medication-related harm.

For instance, the NHIS plans to prevent polypharmacy by providing a personalized prescription monitoring system for medical personnel and counseling sessions for patients with polypharmacy.