Community-dwelling older people's attitudes towards deprescribing in Canada.
While there is evidence that supervised withdrawal of inappropriate medications might be beneficial for individuals with polypharmacy, little is known about their attitudes towards deprescribing.



This study aimed to describe the situation among older community-dwelling Canadians.



A self-administered survey was adapted from the Patients' Attitudes Towards Deprescribing questionnaire and distributed to 10 community pharmacies and 2 community centers. The participants rated their agreement on statements about polypharmacy/deprescribing on a 5-point, Likert-type scale. Correlations between the desire to have medications deprescribed and survey items were evaluated using Spearman's Rho and Goodman and Kurska's gamma rank correlations.



From the 129 participants, 63% were women [median age: 76 (IQR:71-80); median number medication: 6 (IQR: 3-8)]. A proportion of 50.8% (95%CI: 41.6%-60.0%) expressed the desire to reduce their number of medications. This desire was strongly correlated with the individuals' feeling of taking a large number of medications and moderately correlated with the belief that some of the medications were no longer needed or that they were experiencing side effects.



The results show that older individuals in the community are eager to undertake deprescribing, especially if they have a large number of medications, are experiencing side effects or feel some medications are no longer necessary.
Université du Québec à Rimouski, 1595 Boulevard Alphonse-Desjardins, Lévis (Québec), G6V 0A6, Canada; Centre d'excellence sur le vieillissement de Québec, Centre de recherche du CHU de Québec, Québec, Canada; Institut national de santé publique du Québec, Québec, Canada. Electronic address: caroline_sirois@uqar.ca.
Caroline
C
Sirois
Université du Québec à Rimouski, Rimouski, Canada.
Nicole
N
Ouellet
Cognitive Decline Partnership Centre, Kolling Institute of Medical Research, Northern Clinical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia; Geriatric Medicine Research, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University and Capital Health, Nova Scotia Health Authority, NS, Canada.
Emily
E
Reeve
D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D000069340:Deprescriptions; D064420:Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D057187:Independent Living / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D010465:Perception; D019338:Polypharmacy; D011792:Quebec
Attitudes; Deprescribing; Elderly; Perceptions; Polypharmacy