Table 2.

Responses to questions surveying the rationale, barriers, and enablers of conducting clinical deprescribing trials

Question theme	Number of responses (%)
Main rationale	96 (100)
Assess the efficacy of deprescribing interventions to optimize clinical and/or patient‐centered outcomes	76 (79.2)
Assess the efficacy of deprescribing interventions to optimize prescribing outcomes (ie, reduce medication burden)	14 (14.6)
Generate evidence on medication harms	2 (2.1)
Generate evidence on medication efficacy	1 (1.0)
Other	3 (3.1)
Common barriers
Time and effort required to conduct	53 (18.2)
Establishing and/or maintaining relationships with other health professionals involved in patient care	50 (17.1)
Incorporating patients’/carers’ opinions on the deprescribing process	37 (12.7)
Coordinating deprescribing process for the patient	37 (12.7)
Coordinating logistics of deprescribing in the setting	35 (12.0)
Harnessing practitioner's skills and knowledge into the deprescribing process	30 (10.3)
Obtaining adequate patient consent	23 (7.9)
Funding	16 (5.5)
Other	11 (3.8)
Common enablers
Beliefs of other health professionals regarding benefits of deprescribing	57 (24.4)
Willingness of patients to participate	49 (20.9)
Researcher, health professional, and/or patient experience with deprescribing	46 (19.7)
Support from staff at recruitment sites	44 (18.6)
Previous experience of people involved with conducting deprescribing trials	25 (10.7)
Other	13 (5.6)

Participants were able to select more than one option for barriers and enablers; N = 96.