# Identifying caregivers for deprescribing pragmatic trials

> **NIH NIH R24** · NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE/RES/EDU · 2021 · $274,268

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
 The proposed supplemental project builds on the parent grant, R24 AG064025, which established the U.S.
Deprescribing Research Network (USDeN). The Network aims to catalyze impactful research on deprescribing
- the structured process of stopping unnecessary, potentially harmful, or goal-discordant medications in a safe,
effective, and patient-centered manner – and build an interdisciplinary community of investigators working in
this field. During the first year of the project, substantial progress has been made towards the original aims.
The Network has supported mutual learning and collaboration through a Junior Investigators Intensive and
other opportunities, created a coordinated network of research sites, developed and disseminated resources to
aid deprescribing research, funded innovative pilot studies and grant planning awards, and engaged
stakeholders to maximize the relevance of research on deprescribing.
 The goal of this supplement is to expand the work of the Network to focus on Alzheimer's Disease and
Related Dementias (ADRD). Specifically, the project will address a high-priority area for deprescribing research
– the development of a tool for pragmatically identifying family and unpaid caregivers of people living with
dementia (PLWD) for deprescribing trials. PLWD face considerable medication-related treatment burden and
harms. Caregivers are often responsible for medication management, face strain due to medication-related
tasks and have specific informational and decisional needs and conflicts. Purposeful engagement of caregivers
is critical for implementing deprescribing for PLWD. Yet, a major gap in the deprescribing knowledge base is
that few deprescribing interventions have specifically identified or engaged ADRD caregivers. Moreover,
caregivers are not routinely identified or supported in care delivery, and health systems rarely collect data on
outcomes that reflect their lived experience. Systematically identifying caregivers with responsibility for
managing medications would facilitate pragmatic trial recruitment, tailored delivery of deprescribing
interventions to caregivers and collection of caregiver-reported outcome measures. The aims of this
supplemental award are: 1) To iteratively refine a tool for identifying caregivers of PLWD for future embedded
pragmatic deprescribing trials through a user-centered design process involving in-depth interviews with key
stakeholders; and 2) To test the resultant tool with 25 patient-caregiver dyads at two healthcare systems (50
dyads in total) to establish proof of concept, feasibility and acceptability of the process. There is an urgent
public health need to build the nation's capacity to conduct pragmatic clinical trials of strategies to improve the
care of PLWD and their caregivers, including deprescribing, under “real-world” conditions. Facilitating
identification of ADRD caregivers for pragmatic trials will be a major advance for the field of deprescribing and
ADRD res...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10288051
- **Project number:** 3R24AG064025-02S2
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE/RES/EDU
- **Principal Investigator:** CYNTHIA Melinda BOYD
- **Activity code:** R24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $274,268
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-08-15 → 2024-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10288051

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10288051, Identifying caregivers for deprescribing pragmatic trials (3R24AG064025-02S2). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10288051. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*