Iterative Development of Clinician Guides to Support Deprescribing Decisions and Communication for Older Patients in Hospital: A Novel Methodology.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Medication review is an important component of the management of older hospital patients. Deprescribing (supervised withdrawal of inappropriate medicines) is one outcome of review. This study aimed to iteratively develop and test the usability of deprescribing guides, which support multidisciplinary clinicians to reduce inappropriate polypharmacy in older inpatients. METHODS: Deprescribing guides for hospital clinicians were developed using a novel mixed-methods, ten-step process. Iterative development and usability testing were applied. This included content development through review of the literature; expert consensus through five rounds of feedback using a modified Delphi approach; and usability testing by 16 multidisciplinary hospital clinicians on hypothetical clinical scenarios involving observations, semi-structured interviews, and administration of the System Usability Scale. RESULTS: This novel process was used to develop deprescribing guides that facilitate implementation of evidence on deprescribing in routine hospital care. The guides present evidence-based information in a format that aligns with workflows of multidisciplinary hospital clinicians. The guides were adapted for various clinical roles to navigate efficiently to suit differing workflow needs. Guides include unique communication support in the form of "preferred language". Clinicians can use the "preferred language" to apply the evidence to the individual patient and relay decisions between health providers and with patients/carers. The total System Usability Scale score was 80.6 ± 2.0 (mean ± standard error of the mean), indicating excellent usability. Guides have been developed using consistent format for nine medication classes that are common targets for deprescribing and are publicly available. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates a novel approach to the development and implementation of evidence-based recommendations that support deprescribing in routine hospital care.

Discontinuation of statins in a population of older New Zealanders with limited life expectancy.

Discontinuation of statins may be considered for older individuals with a cancer, multi-morbidity, approaching end-of-life and in primary prevention. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the rates of statin discontinuation in the last 12 months of life and a diagnosis of cancer, and in individuals using statins for primary or secondary prevention. A case-control study of matched cases and controls. Matching was based on age, Charlson comorbidity index scores and socioeconomic status. Prescription and diagnostic data for 20,482 individuals who were aged over 75 years, were in their last 12 months of life and were receiving statins during the study period (1 January 2007 to 31 December 2012). After propensity score matching, we identified 4832 cases with a diagnosis of cancer and 4809 matched controls. We used Cox regression to test the relationship between the relative risk of statin discontinuation and a diagnosis of cancer, and in individuals using statins for primary or secondary prevention. Statins were discontinued in 70.4% of older adults with a diagnosis of cancer and 55.8% of those without cancer (P < 0.05). The Cox regression analysis supports that a diagnosis of cancer can increase the rate of statin discontinuation compared with individuals without a diagnosis of cancer regardless of whether statins were used for primary or secondary prevention (P < 0.05). The findings from this study support that statins are likely to be discontinued in the last year of life in older people with limited life expectancy from cancer, even if statins were indicated for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease.

Investigating polypharmacy and drug burden index in hospitalised older people.

AIMS: To investigate the changes in polypharmacy and the drug burden index (DBI) occurring during hospitalisation for older people. The secondary aim was to examine the associations of these two measures with the length of hospital stay and admission for falls or delirium. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of patients' medical records was undertaken at a large university teaching hospital (Sydney, Australia) for patients with the age of ≥ 65 years and admitted under the care of the geriatric medicine or rehabilitation teams. Polypharmacy was defined as the use of more than five regular medications. The DBI measures exposure to drugs with anticholinergic and sedative effects. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate the associations between polypharmacy and DBI with outcome measures. Data are presented using odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS: A total of 329 patients was included in this study. The mean (± standard deviation) age of the population was 84.6 ± 7.0 years, 62% were female and 40% were admitted from residential aged-care facilities. On admission, polypharmacy was observed in 60% of the cohort and DBI exposure for 50%. DBI and polypharmacy exposure decreased during hospitalisation, but only the number of medications taken decreased by a statistically significant margin (P = 0.02). Patients with a high DBI (≥ 1) were approximately three times more likely to be admitted for delirium than those with no DBI exposure (odds ratio, 2.95; 95% confidence interval, 1.34-6.51). CONCLUSIONS: In the present study, DBI was associated with an increased risk of hospital admission for delirium only. Polypharmacy was not associated with any of the clinical measures.

High-risk prescribing and incidence of frailty among older community-dwelling men.

Evidence about the association between treatment with high-risk medicines and frailty in older individuals is limited. We investigated the relationship between high-risk prescribing and frailty at baseline, as well as 2-year incident frailty, in 1,662 men ≥70 years of age. High-risk prescribing was defined as polypharmacy (≥5 medicines), hyperpolypharmacy (≥10 medicines), and by the Drug Burden Index (DBI), a dose-normalized measure of anticholinergic and sedative medicines. At baseline, frail participants had adjusted odds ratios (ORs) of 2.55 (95% confidence interval, CI: 1.69-3.84) for polypharmacy, 5.80 (95% CI: 2.90-11.61) for hyperpolypharmacy, and 2.33 (95% CI: 1.58-3.45) for DBI exposure, as compared with robust participants. Of the 1,242 men who were robust at baseline, 6.2% developed frailty over two years. Adjusted ORs of incident frailty were 2.45 (95% CI: 1.42-4.23) for polypharmacy, 2.50 (95% CI: 0.76-8.26) for hyperpolypharmacy, and 2.14 (95% CI: 1.25-3.64) for DBI exposure. High-risk prescribing may contribute to frailty in community-dwelling older men.