Deprescribing of preventive medications in palliative care patients living with multiple long-term conditions in their final 12 months of life: A retrospective cohort Clinical Practice Research Datalink study.

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate the patterns and trends associated with deprescribing of preventive medications in the final 12 months of life in palliative patients living with multiple long-term conditions using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink.

Participants: All patients with a medcode/readcode for palliative care assigned to their profile with a medcode/readcode for a cardiometabolic condition. All patients were on therapeutic interventions for their condition/s.

Primary and secondary outcome measures: the trends of medication deprescribing of preventive medications in the final twelve months of life in those known to be end-of-life.

Results: Preventive medication deprescribing was only observed in a very small cohort of patients. The findings were consistent across all six medication groups tested. Deprescribing was observed in a range of 2-60 patients with the most deprescribing efforts being associated with antihypertensive medications (n = 177), and antiplatelet medications (n = 70), and antihyperglycaemic medications (n = 10).

Conclusions: Deprescribing practices are not commonplace in patients with a known end-of-life designation with low patient numbers (range 2-60) undergoing the intervention, thus potentially reducing the quality of life in these patients final twelve months of life. CPRD ID: #22_002253, linkage request 2914.