Prescribing for Australians living with dementia: study protocol using the Delphi technique.
BACKGROUND
Prescribing is complicated for people living with dementia, and careful consideration should be given to continuing and initiating all medicines. This study aims to elicit opinion and gain consensus on appropriate medicine use for people living with dementia in Australia to create a consensus-based list of explicit prescribing criteria.


METHODS
A Delphi technique will be used to develop explicit criteria of medication use in adults aged 65 years and above. An interdisciplinary panel of Australian experts in geriatric therapeutics will be convened that will consist of a minimum of 10 participants. To develop the consensus-based criteria, this study will use an iterative, anonymous, multistaged approach with controlled feedback. Round 1 questionnaire will be administered, and subsequently qualitatively analysed. The round 1 results will be fed back to the panel members, and a round 2 questionnaire developed using questions on a five-point Likert scale. This process will repeat until consensus is developed, or diminishing returns are noted.


BACKGROUND
All participants will be provided with a participant information sheet, and sign a written consent form. Ethical approval has been granted from the University of Western Australia's Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) (reference: RA/4/1/7172). We expect that data from this study will result in a paper published in a peer-reviewed clinical journal and will also present the results at conferences.
School of Medicine and Pharmacology, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
Amy
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2084-8469
A
Page
School of Medicine and Pharmacology, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
Kathleen
K
Potter
School of Medicine and Pharmacology, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
Rhonda
R
Clifford
Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Andrew
A
McLachlan
School of Medicine and Pharmacology, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
Christopher
C
Etherton-Beer
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001315:Australia; D003697:Delphi Technique; D003704:Dementia / Q000188:drug therapy*; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000592:standards*; D055317:Evidence-Based Practice; D005260:Female; D005853:Geriatrics; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012107:Research Design; D012196:Review Literature as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY; GERIATRIC MEDICINE