Prescribers have said that it’s difficult to stop medications when prescribing guidelines only talk about starting them. The “Deprescribing Guidelines for the Elderly” project developed evidence-based deprescribing guidelines to support clinicians in safely reducing or stopping medications. We conducted a national survey to identify priorities for deprescribing guidelines. Then, we used an evidence-based approach to develop deprescribing guidelines for three specific drug classes — proton pump inhibitors, benzodiazepine receptor agonists, and antipsychotics. We piloted these guidelines in three long-term-care and three Family Health Teams in the Ottawa area in Ontario, Canada. The resulting guidelines have been published, and a number of related materials are available in the guidelines and patient information sections of this website.
More about this project can be found here.
Co-leads: Dr. Barbara Farrell and Dr. James Conklin, Bruyère Research Institute
Co-investigators: Dr. Lise Bjerre, Dr. Lisa McCarthy, Dr. Kevin Pottie, Dr. Lalitha Raman-Wilms, Dr. Carlos Rojas-Fernandez
Contact: deprescribing@deprescribing.org
Funder (2013-2016): This research/study was supported by the Government of Ontario Health Services Research Fund in collaboration with the Ontario Pharmacy Evidence Network.
Additional links:
Developing Deprescribing Guidelines – Video
This video helps viewers understand:
- The rationale for evidence-based deprescribing guidelines
- The process used for developing the deprescribing guidelines
- The steps that a health care professional and patient need to go through to make and carry out safe deprescribing processes
Access all of the Bruyère Deprescrbing Guidelines Research Team’s videos here.
