ArticleAge and ageing2023
Deprescribing to optimise health outcomes for frail older people: a double-blind placebo-controlled randomised controlled trial-outcomes of the Opti-med study.
Article in Age and ageing, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Outcomes of deprescribing for people with life-limiting conditions: A systematic review.Palliative medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Interventions for preventing falls in older people in care facilities.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Interventions to Address Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing for Older Primary Care Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JAMA network open · 2025Pooled it
- Criteria to Report Adverse Drug Withdrawal Events in Clinical Trials: A Systematic Review.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review of the evidence for deprescribing interventions among older people living with frailty.BMC geriatrics · 2021Pooled it
- Proxy reports on the EQ-5D-5L in residential aged care facilities: a validation study.Health and quality of life outcomes · 2026Trial
- Trial
- Deprescribing in Older People: A Clinical Practice Guideline Summary.The Medical journal of Australia · 2026Article
- Team approach to polypharmacy evaluation and reduction for general practice patients with dementia: the Australian TAPERDem study.Therapeutic advances in drug safety · 2026Article
- Impact of the deprescribing timing on medicines optimisation in older cancer patients receiving hospice care at the end of life: a comparative cohort study.European geriatric medicine · 2025Observational
- Article
- Pharmacist-led deprescribing interventions for cancer patients in a specialist palliative care setting.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2025Article
- Assessing causality in deprescribing studies: A focus on adverse drug events and adverse drug withdrawal events.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Article
- Deprescribing in Australian residential aged care facilities: A scoping review.Australasian journal on ageing · 2025Article
- A comparison of changes in drug burden index between older inpatients who fell and people who have not fallen: A case-control study.Australasian journal on ageing · 2024Observational
- Measuring Quality of Life in Deprescribing Trials: A Scoping Review.Drugs & aging · 2024Article
- Consultation-Based Deprescribing Service to Optimize Palliative Care for Terminal Cancer Patients.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundpotentially harmful polypharmacy is very common in older people living in aged care facilities. To date, there have been no double-blind randomised controlled studies of deprescribing multiple medications.
methodsthree-arm (open intervention, blinded intervention and blinded control) randomised controlled trial enrolling people aged over 65 years (n = 303, noting pre-specified recruitment target of n = 954) living in residential aged care facilities. The blinded groups had medications targeted for deprescribing encapsulated while the medicines were deprescribed (blind intervention) or continued (blind control). A third open intervention arm had unblinded deprescribing of targeted medications.
resultsparticipants were 76% female with mean age 85.0 ± 7.5 years. Deprescribing was associated with a significant reduction in the total number of medicines used per participant over 12 months in both intervention groups (blind intervention group -2.7 medicines, 95% CI -3.5, -1.9, and open intervention group -2.3 medicines; 95% CI -3.1, -1.4) compared with the control group (-0.3, 95% CI -1.0, 0.4, P = 0.053). Deprescribing regular medicines was not associated with any significant increase in the number of 'when required' medicines administered. There were no significant differences in mortality in the blind intervention group (HR 0.93, 95% CI 0.50, 1.73, P = 0.83) or the open intervention group (HR 1.47, 95% CI 0.83, 2.61, P = 0.19) compared to the control group.
conclusionsdeprescribing of two to three medicines per person was achieved with protocol-based deprescribing during this study. Pre-specified recruitment targets were not met, so the impact of deprescribing on survival and other clinical outcomes remains uncertain.
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