Improving the use of medicines is an important element of providing high-quality care for older people and improving their quality of life, especially at the end of life, when older people are often prescribed increasing numbers of medicines. These may include medicines that are unnecessary, and may increase the burden of harm or medicines that are unlikely to achieve a meaningful benefit during the older person’s remaining lifetime. One possible solution to improve medicines use is deprescribing, which has been defined as the planned process of dose reduction or stopping of medication that might be causing harm, or no longer be of benefit, supervised by a healthcare professional.

To date, few studies have investigated the perspectives of health care professionals toward deprescribing in older people in general and in older people with limited life expectancy in particular. Although deprescribing decisions are made by healthcare professionals, the perceptions of people with limited life expectancy and their carers are also considered to be an important factor in guiding this decision-making process. Understanding deprescribing from the perspective of all stakeholders involved is important in helping to determine effective ways to support deprescribing in clinical practice to reduce the negative consequences of potentially inappropriate prescribing in people with life-limiting conditions and limited life expectancy.