Effects of Communication Training to Involve Older People in Decisions to DEPRESCRIBE Cardiometabolic Medication: a Cluster-randomized Trial in Primary Care

The researchers will investigate the effects of a communication training for community pharmacists and general physicians that aims to make it easier for them to stop or lower medication for cardiovascular disease and/or diabetes in older patients.

The researchers expect that trained community pharmacists and general physicians will stop or lower medication for cardiovascular disease and/or diabetes in more patients compared to untrained community pharmacists and general physicians.

The researchers will recruit local teams consisting of a community pharmacist and one or more general physician, and allocate each team to either group I or group II. All teams in group I are first being trained, before they conduct a study-specific clinical medication review in 10 patients per team. All teams in group II will first conduct a more general clinical medication review in 10 patients per team too, before receiving the training. Patients will only be included after meeting in- and exlcusion criteria and signing an informed consent form. During the conduct of the study, the researchers will collect patient reported data and data on the conduct of the medication reviews. Retrospectively, the researchers will also collect data on the medication use of the patients from the pharmacy information system and specific medical data related to cardiometabolic disease of the patients from the physician's information system. The researchers will also assess the total costs and benefits of the intervention, and evaluate the training for the purpose of future implementation.