Result

Socio-demographic characteristics of the participants

A total of 85 HCPs were interviewed, 82 were included in the analysis, and three participants were excluded due to incompleteness with 96.5% response rate. The mean age of the study participants was 25 years ± 3.01 years. Nearly two-thirds (57.3%) of the participants were males and Amhara in ethnicity (54.9%). The average work experience of the study participants was 2.23 years ± 2.62 years (Table 1).

Participants’ perception toward medication discontinuation

The overall perception was described by parameters for the perception of medication discontinuation. Participants were considered to be influenced if they score a mean value higher than 1.5 points. Most of the participants (n=73, 89%) have scored less than 1.5 points and are less influenced by the overall five domains. The overall mean level of influence among participants was 1.18 point.
Among the parameters, patient-HCP relationship strength under the domain of ‘patients’ resource scale’ was found to be the lowest influencing level (0.66 points). Almost half of the participants were highly influenced to deprescribe with the occurrence of significant physical health condition (1.55) and objective response to the clinical endpoint of the medication (e.g., blood pressure approaches treatment target) (1.43).
In the domain of “predictions of future health states”, very few HCPs (n=1518.3%) perceive their medication discontinuation decision is more likely to be influenced when it is patient’s concern that symptoms will return if the medication is stopped. Majority of the participants (n=55, 67%) deem formal education is more important to their current level of comfort with making deprescribing decisions. In contrast, almost half of the participants (n=42, 51.2%) mentioned on-the-job experience as a more important factor (Table 2).

The difference in perception level among participants towards medication discontinuation

The difference in the mean perception levels of participants was determined based on socio-demographic characteristics. Based on One-way ANOVA test performed on socio-demographic characteristics, significant difference concerning perception to medication discontinuation were found with different age groups (p = 0.024) and the participants’ educational qualification (p = 0.029) as shown Table 3. Post-hoc analysis indicated that participants with a qualification of clinical pharmacy (mean=0.313) had good perception level towards medication discontinuation compared to participants with physician qualification (mean=0.262), (p = 0.025).