Successful deprescribing requires understanding the attitudes of older adults and caregivers towards this process. This study aimed to capture these attitudes in four French-speaking countries and to investigate associated factors.
A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted by administrating the French version of the revised Patients' Attitudes Towards Deprescribing (rPATD) questionnaire in Belgium, Canada, France, and Switzerland. Community-dwelling or nursing home older adults ≥ 65 years taking ≥ 1 prescribed medications and caregivers of older adults with similar characteristics were included. Multivariate logistic regressions were carried out to examine factors associated with willingness to deprescribe.
A total of 367 older adults (79.3 ± 8.7 years, 63% community-dwelling, 54% ≥ 5 medications) and 255 unrelated caregivers (64.4 ± 12.6 years) of care recipients (83.4 ± 7.9 years, 52% community-dwelling, 69% ≥ 5 medications) answered the questionnaire. Among them, 87.5% older adults and 75.6% caregivers would be willing to stop medications if the physician said it was possible. Reluctance to stop a medication taken for a long time was expressed by 46% of both older adults and caregivers. A low score for the factor "concerns about stopping" (older adults: aOR: 0.21; 95% CI: 0.07-0.59), and a high score for the factor "involvement" (older adults: aOR: 2.66; 95% CI: 1.01-7.07; caregivers: aOR: 11.28; 95% CI: 1.48-85.91) were associated with willingness to deprescribe.
A significant proportion of older adults and caregivers of French-speaking countries are open to deprescribing. Despite this apparent willingness, deprescribing conversations in clinical practice remains marginal, emphasizing the importance of optimizing the integration of existing tools such as rPATD.