Family conferences to facilitate deprescribing in older outpatients with frailty and with polypharmacy: the COFRAIL cluster randomized trial.
Polypharmacy among older adults can cause adverse health outcomes as well as adversely impact social outcomes, medication management, and healthcare utilization. The COFRAIL cluster randomized trial explored whether family conferences can promote deprescribing and reduce adverse outcomes related to polypharmacy in community-dwelling frail older adults. After 12 months of follow-up, the researchers did not find any significant difference in hospitalizations among patients randomized to family conferences or usual care. The number of potentially inappropriate prescriptions decreased among patients randomized to family conferences at 6-month follow-up, but this reduction was not sustained at the 12-month follow-up.