Deprescribing

The benefits and harms of medicines can change over time due to altered pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics (how the body handles and responds to medicines) with ageing, medical conditions, other medications and treatment goals. Deprescribing is the term for the process of withdrawal of an inappropriate medication (one where the harms outweigh the benefits in the individual), supervised by a health care professional, with the aim of reducing polypharmacy and improving health outcomes.

While deprescribing is a part of the overall process of optimising medication use, it can be complex to achieve and is not happening in practice as often as it should. As such, polypharmacy and inappropriate medication use is common, particularly in older adults. Inappropriate medication use is associated with harms such as adverse drug reactions, hospitalisation, reduced quality of life and mortality.

Our team is leading research to determine how to optimise deprescribing in the real world through development of guidelines, tools and education and exploring how to best implement these in practice. We aim to conduct consumer and clinician informed research to reduce medication related harm and improve quality of life for all Australians.