Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34652792›Full record

ArticleEuropean geriatric medicine2019

Prescription and deprescription of medications for older adults receiving palliative care during the last 3 months of life: a single-center retrospective cohort study.

Barbara Roux, Lucas Morin, Arnaud Papon, Marie-Laure Laroche

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Article in European geriatric medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
0.7field-weighted citation impact, top 27% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Trial
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.

Barbara RouxDepartment of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmacovigilance, University Hospital of Limoges, 2 avenue Martin Luther King, 87042, Limoges Cedex, France. barbara.roux@chu-limoges.fr.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0303-1246
Lucas MorinAging Research Center, Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8486-8610
Arnaud PaponDepartment of Geriatric Medicine, University Hospital of Limoges, Limoges, France.
Marie-Laure LarocheDepartment of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmacovigilance, University Hospital of Limoges, 2 avenue Martin Luther King, 87042, Limoges Cedex, France.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4344-0359
Inserm · FRStockholm University · SEUniversité de Limoges · FR

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

purposeNear the end of life, drugs to ensure comfort and improve quality of life should be prioritized, and unnecessary drugs should be avoided. The aim was to assess the evolution and quality of drug therapy throughout the last 3 months of life of older adults in need of palliative care.

methodsA single-center retrospective cohort study included older adults (≥ 65 years) who died in a teaching hospital between 1 January 2014 and 30 June 2014 and had been identified as patients in need of palliative care in their last 3 months of life. Drugs were collected from electronic medical records and defined as 'unnecessary' or 'essential' based on a review of the literature.

resultsA total of 149 patients were included [age: 82.1 (SD 8.6) years, women: 46.3%]. The mean number of medications varied from 6.7 (SD 3.3) drugs 90 days before death, to 7.5 (SD 4.1) 7 days before death, to 5.6 (SD 3.6) on the day of death. During the final week of life, one additional prescription of essential drugs was observed for 75.2% of patients and 79.3% of patients had at least one unnecessary drug deprescribed. The most prescribed and deprescribed drug classes were, respectively, analgesics (56.4%) and antithrombotic agents (38.2%) during the last week of life.

conclusionsNear the end of life, medication therapy is adapted to the goals of palliative care. However, this only occurs during the last week of life. Earlier transition to palliative care is necessary to avoid exposure to unnecessary drugs.

Indexed as

End-of-life careMedication therapy managementOlder adultsPalliative care

Identifiers

PMID34652792
OpenAlexW2922277850

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.