Metrics details. General practitioners GPs have a central role to play on reduction of polypharmacy and deprescribing.
This study aimed to assess beliefs and attitudes towards deprescribing in patients, aged 65 years or older in primary care, and to identify factors associated with deprescribing and their willingness to stop medication. The study enrolled patients. Although most patients Patients aged less than 75 years old reported more concerns about stopping. Women and patients with higher educational attainment showed significantly higher involvement in medication management.
The majority of older adults were willing to stop one or more of their regular medicines if asked to do so by their GP. GPs should address deprescribing into their current practice. Peer Review reports. The most approved definition of the deprescribing is that of Reeve et al. In the French context, a treatment should be necessary and appropriate in order to be relevant [ 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Necessary means that the drug should be prescribed according to guidelines, and appropriate means that the drug can be prescribed without harm to the patient.
Patients in multimorbid conditions may benefit from a necessary treatment, but may be harmed by the same treatment because it is inappropriate. Deprescribing is associated with polypharmacy. There is also no single definition of polypharmacy, but the most common in the literature is taking 5 or more medications daily, which is a numerical definition [ 5 , 6 ].
Polypharmacy show increasing trend in developed countries [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Polypharmacy has many negative consequences, for which a conceptual classification has been proposed by Wastesson et al.
