Assessment of Healthcare Providers’ Knowledge, Attitude, Practice and Barriers Towards Deprescribing in Saudi Arabia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22399/ijcesen.5120Keywords:
Deprescribing, Polypharmacy, Deprescribing awareness, Inappropriate medication useAbstract
In this study we aimed to assess the healthcare providers’ knowledge, attitude, practice and barriers towards deprescribing within Saudi Arabia hospitals. A quantitative study that utilized an electronic questionnaire to survey the information from healthcare providers, which distributed through WhatsApp, X platform and emails from April to December 2023. The data analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 22. The study included 385 participants 63% of them were men. Among them, the pharmacists make up 67%, while the physicians only 33%. Approximately 63% of them were aware about deprescribing and around 89% considered that deprescribing was helpful in decreasing medication burden, healthcare system cost, improving treatment outcomes and quality of life. The majority of participants 60% they had never practiced deprescribing. The most frequently reported barriers for deprescribing practicing were lack of knowledge and tools 62%, lack of organizational support 61% and time constraint 51%. There is a good awareness level between physicians and pharmacists in Saudi Arabia among deprescribing and its importance as an essential part of prescribing processes as well as it is one of the tools that addressing the polypharmacy complications and improving the overall treatment outcomes.
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