Table 2.
Baseline characteristics of study participants by willingness to deprescribe (n=298)
| All patients in the sample (n=298)* |
Patients with lower than median willingness to deprescribe (n=74)† | Patients with equal or higher than median willingness to deprescribe (n=224)† | |
| Age (in years) | 78 (74–83) | 79 (74–83) | 78 (74–83) |
| Female | 133 (45) | 39 (53) | 94 (42) |
| Patient education | |||
| Mandatory schooling or less | 113 (38) | 25 (34) | 86 (39) |
| Diploma at secondary school level | 139 (47) | 33 (45) | 106 (47) |
| Higher education diploma | 45 (15) | 16 (22) | 29 (13) |
| Number of chronic conditions | 7 (5–10) | 7 (5–9) | 7 (5–11) |
| Living situation | |||
| In apartment/house without any external help | 227 (76) | 62 (84) | 165 (74) |
| In apartment/house with some external help | 61 (20) | 9 (12) | 52 (23) |
| In a nursing home | 10 (3) | 3 (4) | 7 (3) |
| Patient is unable to leave the house (as compared with not housebound) | 7 (2) | 2 (3) | 5 (2) |
| Equal or higher than median satisfaction with current medication use (as compared with lower than median medication willingness to deprescribe) | 215 (72) | 59 (80) | 156 (70) |
| Number of GP consultations during the 6 month follow-up period prior to the enrolment into the study trial | 8 (5–14) | 9 (6–13) | 8 (5–15) |
| Average Medication Appropriateness Index at baseline | 1.7 (0.2–5) | 1.8 (0.2–6) | 1.7 (0.2–4.7) |
| Number of long-term medications | 8 (5–11) | 8 (5–10) | 8 (5–11) |
For continuous variables, the median and the IQR are presented. For categorical variables, frequencies and percentages are presented. Missingness: gender and age had 0% missing values. Patient education, living situation, housebound yes/no, patient satisfaction with medications and the number of chronic medications had less than 3% missing information. The number of chronic conditions and the average Medication Appropriateness Index at baseline had less than 7% missing.
*Among the 298 patients, 146 patients were then randomised to the control group and 152 patients to the intervention group. Among patients with lower than median willingness to deprescribe, 36 were randomised to the control group and 38 to the intervention group. Among patients with equal or higher than median willingness to deprescribe, 110 were assigned to the control group and 114 were randomised to the intervention group.
†Patients’ willingness to have medications deprescribed was measured using the rPATD global question ‘If my doctor said it was possible, I would be willing to stop one or more of my regular medicines’. The median willingness to have medications deprescribed corresponded to ‘strongly agree’ with the rPATD global question.
GP, general practitioner; rPATD, revised Patient Attitudes Towards Deprescribing.