Assessing the maintenance of hospital discharge prescriptions in the older population: a systematic literature review.

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Learn more: PMC Disclaimer | PMC Copyright Notice BMC Geriatr . 2026 Apr 21;26:793. doi: 10.1186/s12877-026-07491-x Assessing the maintenance of hospital discharge prescriptions in the older population: a systematic literature review Jimmy Gotzamanis 1 , Camille Schwab 1, 2, ✉ , Agnès Dechartres 3 , Patrick Hindlet 1, 2 , Christine Fernandez 1, 2 Author information Article notes Copyright and License information 1 Sorbonne Université, INSERM, Institut Pierre Louis d’Epidémiologie et de Santé Publique, AP-HP, Hôpital Saint-Antoine, Pharmacie, Paris, France 2 Département de Pharmacie clinique, Faculté de Pharmacie, Université Paris Saclay, Orsay, France 3 Sorbonne Université, INSERM, Institut Pierre Louis d’Epidémiologie et de Santé Publique, AP-HP, Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Département de Santé Publique, Paris, France ✉ Corresponding author. Received 2025 Jan 20; Accepted 2026 Apr 8; Collection date 2026. © The Author(s) 2026 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ . PMC Copyright notice PMCID: PMC13231708  PMID: 42015063 Abstract Background The transition of patients from hospital to primary care can generate medication errors. The maintenance of discharge prescriptions in older patients after hospitalization reflects the quality communication between hospitals and primary care. Aim To assess the maintenance of hospital discharge prescriptions by community general practitioners. Methods We carried out a systematic literature review of research studies reporting a proportion of maintenance of discharge prescriptions by general practitioners. We searched Medline, Cochrane, Embase and Clinicaltrials.gov. We included studies on older patients, hospitalized for any cause and discharged home. Risk of bias was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tool. The maintenance proportions across studies were represented using a forest plot. Results Eleven studies were included. Ten reported a proportion of maintenance of discharge prescriptions higher than 50%. Seven studies were specifically interested in the maintenance of in-hospital modifications and reported high proportions of prescription maintenance by general practitioners (between 53.3 and 88.5%). Deletions were widely accepted by general practitioners (between 88.3 and 92.7%). Five studies, where medication reconciliation was carried out, reported high maintenance proportions (between 76 and 88.5%). The delay in prescription by the general practitioner did not seem to influence the proportion of maintenance. Discussion The heterogeneity in designs and settings among the studies limited the comparison between these proportions. This systematic review shows a high proportion of maintenance of discharge prescriptions in older patients by general practitioners. Interventions, such as medication reconciliation, may improve the maintenance of modification of discharge prescriptions by general practitioners. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-026-07491-x. Keywords: Geriatrics, Drugs, Public Health, Deprescription, City-hospital relationship Impact statements Clinical pharmacy interventions help the maintenance of hospital prescriptions by general practicioners Deletions, which reflect deprescription, are widely accepted by general practitioners Introduction The ageing of the world population is associated with an increase in the number of patients suffering from multiple chronic pathologies [ 1 ]. This polypathology leads to polypharmacy which exposes older patients to an increased risk of under-use, i.e. not prescribing drugs that are indicated for a patient, and over-use, i.e. prescribing drugs with no indication or proven efficacy or even prescriptions of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). The medicines errors may place a huge burden on patients, with consequences such as cognitive workload, psychological distress, pill burden [ 2 ]. A study has shown that 77% of patients were admitted into acute geriatric units with prescription over-use, 64.5% with under-use and 47.5% with PIMs [ 3 ]. Consequently, hospitalization of an elderly patient is an opportunity to reassess prescriptions, with particular focus on medication appropriateness [ 4 ]. The impact of hospitalization on pre-admission prescriptions is significant. Up to 68% of these prescriptions undergo at least one change at discharge [ 5 ]. This may involve adding drugs related to the patient’s initial reason for admission, or de-prescribing in order to reduce polypharmacy and/or the use of PIMs, in the post discharge prescription [ 6 ]. These changes between pre-admission prescriptions and discharge prescriptions can lead to medication discrepancies and therefore medication errors [ 7 , 8 ]: 16% of medication errors occur in prescribing stages and 60% of medication discrepancies occur during transition of care [ 9 , 10 ]. Medication errors and medication discrepancies can cause adverse drug events, which are responsible for 20% of emergency hospitalizations in elderly patients [ 11 ] and can also lead to an extension of the length of hospital stay, a decompensation or even to death. Therefore, there are long-term consequences for the patients, their families and carers, but also for the society with the increase in healthcare costs [ 12 ]. The maintenance of discharge prescription by community general practitioners (GPs), i.e. the continuation of therapeutic modifications made during hospitalization, reflects the quality of communication between hospital and primary care. GPs report that additions or suppressions of medicines during hospitalization are not systematically explained in the discharge letter, which hinders the onward decisions that the GP can take [ 13 ]. In this context, several clinical interventions may contribute to patient adherence to medications after hospital discharge: communication between hospitals and GPs through hospital discharge letters, providing instructions to patients or caregivers, communicating drug regimen changes to community pharmacists, etc. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society reported guidelines to improve the transfer of information about medicines across all care settings [ 14 ]. Although some systematic reviews have studied the impact of drug reconciliation in hospitals to prevent any unintentional discrepancies between pre-admission prescriptions and discharge prescriptions [ 15 ], to our knowledge, there is no systematic review that has, to date, reported on the proportion of post discharge prescriptions maintained by GPs. Aim The aim of this systematic review was to assess the maintenance of hospital discharge prescriptions by GPs. The secondary objectives were to describe the medication changes (addition, deletion, substitution) made during hospitalization and maintained by GPs post discharge and, for the post discharge prescriptions that were not maintained, the medication changes made by the GPs. Methods This systematic review of the literature was conducted using the COCHRANE handbook and is reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 [ 16 ]. The protocol was registered in the PROSPERO database (CRD42023421102); the modifications made to the protocol are reported in Table S1. Design and population We have included all original observational studies assessing the proportion of maintenance of post discharge prescriptions by GPs. The population of the studies were older patients, defined as patients aged 65 or over, hospitalized for any cause and discharged home. Interventional studies were excluded because they selected patients according to criteria relating to the intervention and were therefore not representative of the general population. Studies on specific populations or diseases and palliative care were also excluded. There were no date or language restrictions. Search strategy The databases used were Medline via PubMed, Cochrane, Embase and ClinicalTrials.gov. A search equation was submitted to each of these databases (Table S2). When available, MeSH terms for Medline and Emtree terms for Embase were incorporated into the search equation combined with other terms searched for in the titles and abstracts. Additionally, because we did not wish to include studies which focused on a specific pathology, terms relating to specific pathologies (heart failure, COVID-19, cancer) were entered for exclusion, as well as interventional studies. The electronic search was conducted on May 30th 2023. Selection process After elimination of duplicates, a first selection based on titles and abstracts was made by two independent reviewers (JG and CS). The selection of articles on the basis of titles and abstracts were read by the two reviewers to identify eligible studies. We also searched among the references cited in the included articles and among the articles which cited the included studies. A Cohen’s kappa test was performed to assess the agreement between the two reviewing authors [ 17 ]. Discrepancies were discussed and arbitrated by a third reviewer. Data collection process Data were then collected using a predesigned data extraction form. If necessary, the corresponding authors of the studies were contacted in order to obtain clarifications or additional information. Data items The STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology recommendations [ 18 ] were used to determine the data that should be collected. The collected data were: general characteristics: first author, year, journal and country of publication study design: single-centre or multicentre, prospective or retrospective, recruitment period and follow-up time baseline population characteristics: inclusion and exclusion criteria, age, sex ratio, setting, length of hospital stay prescriptions characteristics: number of deletions, addition, dosage modifications between pre-admission prescriptions and discharge prescriptions, and between discharge prescriptions and post-discharge prescriptions Main and additional outcomes: proportion of discharge prescriptions maintained by the GP in patients aged 65 and over, proportion of medication changes (addition, deletion, substitution) made during hospitalization and maintained by GPs, proportion of medication changes made by the GP, proportions of discharge prescriptions maintained by the GP according to the delay between discharge and visit to the GP This extraction was made by two independent reviewers (JG and CS) and discrepancies were resolved through discussion. Risk of bias assessment Risk of bias was independently assessed by the two reviewers using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal tool for studies reporting prevalence data [ 19 ]. Synthesis methods The proportions of treatment maintenance across studies was shown using a forest plot with confidence intervals (95%), and a pie chart for one of the secondary outcomes. R(version 2022.07.2) was used to synthesize results. Additional analyses Sensitivity analyses were carried out to report the proportion of maintenance of discharge prescriptions by GPs according to the different methods of calculating the proportion of maintained prescriptions: maintenance according to all medicines on the discharge prescription vs. only those medicines modified made by the hospital. Maintenance according to the delay between discharge and first GP prescription was analyzed. Subgroup analyses were carried out to report the proportion of maintenance of discharge prescriptions by GPs according to the maintenance after discharge with medication reconciliation vs. without medication reconciliation. Results Study selection The search equation submitted to the four databases retrieved 7,508 articles. Before screening, 1,495 duplicates were removed. Of the 6,013 articles screened, 5,978 were removed after selection by title and abstract. Of the remaining 35 articles, 24 were removed after full-text screening. Thus, eleven articles were included in our systematic review (Fig. 1 ). The calculated Cohen’s kappa coefficient was 0.65, which corresponds to moderate agreement between the two reviewers [ 17 ]. Fig. 1. Open in a new tab Flow-chart representing the selection of relevant studies Study characteristics Among the eleven selected studies, one was published in 1992 [ 20 ] while the others were published between 2008 and 2021 [ 5 , 21 – 29 ]. Nine studies were conducted in Europe [ 5 , 20 , 23 – 29 ], including six in France [ 5 , 23 , 24 , 26 – 28 ]. The two other studies were conducted in Israel [ 22 ] and Canada [ 21 ]. All studies, except one [ 21 ], were single-centre. All studies included patients from medical wards except Weir’s study [ 21 ] where patients came from both surgical and medical wards. Concerning medical wards, three studies only included patients from acute geriatric wards [ 22 , 24 , 29 ] while the others included patients from different medical wards [ 5 , 20 , 21 , 23 , 25 – 28 ]. Different types of settings were represented: four teaching hospitals [ 23 , 25 , 27 , 29 ] and seven non-university hospitals [ 5 , 20 – 22 , 24 , 26 , 28 ]. The number of subjects included in each study ranged from 34 to 1,895 [ 21 , 28 ], the median was 126[IQR 53-210.5]. Patients were 65 years old or over, except in one study where they were 75 years old or over [ 23 ]. Mean age varied from 79.6 to 88.9 years old [ 5 , 26 ]. The proportion of maintenance of the discharge prescriptions by GPs was the primary outcome for six studies [ 21 , 23 , 24 , 26 – 28 ] (Table 1 ). Table 1. General characteristics of the studies Author Year Journal Country Temporality Centers Recruitment Sample Age (years old) (mean) Inclusion department Proportion outcome Rousselot [ 19 ] 2021 Therapie France Prospective single-centre University hospital 4 months 126 84.1 Internal medicine and geriatric department Primary Gasperini [ 3 ] 2016 [Geriatry and psychology neuropsychiatry of aging]* France Retrospective single-centre Hospital center 6 months 112 79.6 Internal medicine, Infectious pathology, Neurology, Cardiology, Pneumology, Gastroenterology Secondary Larsen [ 25 ] 2014 European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology Denmark Retrospective single-centre University hospital 3 years 1550 82.6 Acute geriatric ward Secondary Mansur [ 18 ] 2008 The Annals of Pharmacotherapy Israel Retrospective single-centre Hospital centre 1 year 212 81.1 Acute geriatric ward Secondary Burns [ 17 ] 1992 Age and ageing Scotland Prospective single-centre Hospital centre NA 56 82 Acute geriatric ward, Geriatric rehabilitation department Secondary Weir [ 11 ] 2019 The American Journal of Medicine Canada Prospective Multicentric Hospital centres 2 years 1895 NA Medical or surgical unit Primary Rouch [ 20 ] 2018 The journal of nutrition health & aging France Prospective single-centre Hospital centre 3 months 206 85.3 Acute geriatric ward Primary Houlind [ 21 ] 2020 Journal of Clinical Medicine Denmark Prospective single-centre Teaching hospital 10 months 39 80 Emergency department Secondary Zacarin [ 22 ] 2020 Therapie France Retrospective single-centre Hospital centre 1 year 50 88.9 Geriatric rehabilitation department Primary Dipanda [ 23 ] 2020 Geriatrics France Prospective single-centre University hospital 2 months 209 86.8 Acute geriatric ward, Geriatric rehabilitation department Primary Moulis [ 24 ] 2014 10th International Congress of the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society France NA single-centre Hospital centre 1.5 year 34 NA NA Primary Open in a new tab *Gériatrie et Psychologie Neuropsychiatrie du Vieillissement, NA Not Available The follow-up time between hospital discharge and the renewal of prescriptions by the GP ranged from eight days [ 20 ] to six months [ 26 ]. This follow-up was one month or less for five studies [ 20 – 22 , 24 , 25 ] and one study did not mention the follow-up [ 5 ]. Medication reconciliation was carried out in five of the eleven studies [ 20 , 24 , 25 , 27 , 28 ]. Prescription maintenance was not defined identically in all studies, therefore, the calculation of the proportion of maintenance differed among the studies. One study considered that a modification in dosage was not a change [ 29 ]. Similarly, one study counted a medicine substitution as a combination of an addition and suppression, i.e. two changes [ 5 ], as opposed to a single change in the other studies. There were two possible ways of calculating the proportion of maintained discharge prescriptions (Table 2 ). Table 2. Calculating the proportion of maintenance of discharge prescriptions Way of calculating proportion of maintenance Calculation formula Example: calculation for 1 medicine changed on a prescription containing 10 medicines Prescriptions Medicines Open in a new tab These two possible ways were designated as “Prescriptions” or “Medicines”. Two studies considered prescriptions [ 5 , 23 ], five considered medicines [ 21 , 24 , 26 , 28 , 29 ] and four considered both and therefore reported two proportions [ 20 , 22 , 25 , 27 ]. Finally, four studies focused on entire discharge prescriptions [ 5 , 22 , 23 , 25 ], while seven studies considered only the drugs prescribed on discharge prescriptions that had been modified during hospitalization [ 20 , 21 , 24 , 26 – 29 ]. These two possible ways were designated as “All Medicines” and “Modifications”, respectively, in the forest plot (Fig. 2 ). Fig. 2. Open in a new tab Proportions of maintenance of discharge prescriptions by the GP Risk of bias As depicted in Table 3 , the coverage bias could not be studied because the response rates for each subgroup in the studies were not reported (D5) . Moreover, there is no consensual method for measuring the proportion of maintenance of discharge prescriptions by GPs (D6) . Table 3. Risk of bias assessment [ 3 , 11 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ] Open in a new tab The Weir and Larsen studies [ 21 , 29 ] had the lowest risk of bias whereas Burns and Moulis studies [ 20 , 28 ] had the highest risk of bias (Table 3 ). The large cohort study by Weir et al. [ 21 ] can be applied by clinicians to influence their practice since it used a complete definition of maintenance (including additions, deletions and dose modifications) and an adequate methodology to calculate the proportion of prescription maintenance. Risk of reporting bias was assessed with funnel plots (Figure S3 ), from which we can see there is an asymmetrical distribution suggesting some studies with negative or equivocal results may not have been published. Primary outcome The proportions of prescription maintenance varied between 12.3 and 88.5% [ 23 , 28 ]. In the studies which considered the number of maintained prescriptions, two studies reported the lowest proportions(12.3% and 16.7% [ 22 , 23 ]). In the nine studies which considered the number of maintained medicines, seven reported proportions between 76 and 88.5% [ 20 , 21 , 24 – 28 ]. Almost all of the studies that used both methods found a much higher proportion when considering medicines rather than prescriptions (e.g. 62.5% vs. 16.7% in the Mansur study [ 22 ]). One study reported quite similar proportions (79.5 and 83% [ 25 ]) (Fig. 2 ). A meta-analysis was not possible because of the heterogeneity in settings, outcomes, definition of maintenance and calculation of proportions in included studies. Sensitivity analysis The studies that evaluated the maintenance of medicines modified by the hospital showed proportions higher than 50%(from 51.9% to 63,0% [ 20 , 27 ] when expressed as prescriptions and between 53.3 and 88.5% when expressed as medicines)(Figure S4). Influence of post-discharge delay on maintenance There was no obvious variation in proportions of maintenance according to the delay between discharge and first GP prescription. In the “ Prescriptions “ group, for a delay of one month, there were two very different proportions (16.7% and 79.5% [ 22 , 25 ]), and for a delay of six weeks there was an average proportion (51.9% [ 27 ]). For a delay of three months, there was a low proportion of maintenance (12.3% [ 23 ]). In the “ Medicines “ group, at one month post-discharge, the proportions of maintenance ranged from 62.5% to 83% [ 21 , 22 , 24 , 25 ]. At six weeks and two months, the proportions were high (86.7% and 88.5% respectively [ 27 , 28 ]) except for one [ 29 ]. The study with a six-month delay also reported a high proportion (85.3%) [ 26 ] (Figure S5). Subgroup analyses When medication reconciliation was performed at hospital discharge, maintenance of prescriptions seemed higher than when medication reconciliation was not performed. This is less clear in the “Medicines” group where the proportions of maintenance overlap, whether medication reconciliation was performed or not. However, all studies ( n = 5) that made medication reconciliations had a proportion higher than 75% [ 20 , 24 , 25 , 27 , 28 ](Figure S6). Secondary outcomes GPs maintained a large majority of changes made in hospital. Drug deletions were the modifications with the highest proportions of GP prescription maintenance (between 85.1 and 92.7% [ 21 , 24 , 26 , 27 ]). For addition of drugs, one study showed a proportion of 42.4% maintenance [ 29 ] while the others ( n = 4) showed at least 73% of maintenance [ 21 , 24 , 26 , 27 ]. The proportions of dose modifications accepted by GPs varied between 68 and 90.6% [ 21 , 27 ] (Figure S7). Three studies investigated GP interventions on post-discharge prescriptions. The studies reported that GPs made additions, deletions, dose modifications or substitutions (Figure S8). Discussion This systematic review reported a high proportion of maintenance of post-discharge prescriptions by GPs: ten of the eleven studies included report a proportion higher than 50% (between 51.4 and 88.5% [ 5 , 20 – 22 , 24 – 29 ]). This result shows that GPs, for their first renewal prescriptions, respect the prescription modifications made during hospitalization. Likewise, seven studies looked specifically at the prescription maintenance of in-hospital newly prescribed drugs and also reported high proportions of maintenance by GPs (between 53.3 and 88.5% [ 20 , 21 , 24 , 26 – 29 ]). These seven studies confirm that GPs adhere to in-hospital prescription modifications. Differences between studies could be explained by patient characteristics, study design, medication reconciliation or the number of prescription changes at hospital. In this study, the proportion of prescription maintenance did not seem to be influenced by the delay between hospital discharge and renewal by the GP. The three highest proportions of maintenance were reported in studies with a delay longer than one month [ 26 – 28 ]. However, this high proportion may also be explained by the fact that patients can be discharged to a follow-up care or rehabilitation service [ 19 ]. These patients are usually discharged after several weeks of clinical stability so drugs for acute diseases may have already been stopped. On the contrary, Larsen et al. included patients hospitalized in an acute geriatric ward and reported a proportion of prescription maintenance of 53.3% within 2 months post discharge [ 29 ]. These patients might be frailer than those of the Zacarin et al. study [ 26 ]. Thus, frail patients may be prescribed short-term drugs at discharge, leading to modification at renewal by GPs. Conversely, less frail patients could have discharge prescriptions for chronic treatments and therefore fewer modifications at renewal by GPs [ 30 ]. Medication reconciliation may also play a role in the maintenance of hospital discharge prescriptions by GPs. In five studies [ 20 , 24 , 25 , 27 , 28 ] where medication reconciliation was systematically carried out: a high proportion of prescription maintenance was reported (between 76 and 88.5%). Montaleytang et al. reported that with medication reconciliation, GPs maintain hospital modifications at renewal four times higher than without medication reconciliation [ 31 ]. However, for an effective medication reconciliation, better communication between hospitals and GPs or community pharmacists is needed. Communication between hospitals and GPs was described as a factor influencing the maintenance of prescriptions by GPs. The study by Rouch et al. showed that GPs read every hospitalization report but would like to receive them more quickly [ 24 ]. Weir’s study reported that the lack of communication between community and hospital is responsible for 17.8% of GP failures to maintain hospital changes [ 21 ]. Seven of the eleven included studies [ 20 , 21 , 24 , 26 – 29 ] reported the number of changes made on discharge prescriptions compared to pre-admission prescriptions. All the proportions of maintenance remained high, regardless of the number of changes made during hospitalization. This point suggests that GPs are not inclined to return to their own pre-admission prescriptions. Changes made on prescriptions during hospitalization can be additions, deletions, substitutions of a drug or a dose modification. Deletions, which reflect deprescription, were always largely maintained by GPs (between 88.3 and 92.7% [ 21 , 24 , 26 , 27 ]). On the contrary, additions are often observed in acute care and are therefore likely to be modified by GPs during prescription renewal. These results are encouraging in view of the recommendations on deprescribing drugs to prevent polypharmacy in older patients [ 32 , 33 ], knowing that some barriers to deprescribing such as lack of expertise and motivation, time constraints, and negative beliefs still remain nowadays [ 34 ]. Hence, it would have been interesting to compare the proportion of prescription maintenance by GPs in polymedicated vs. non-polymedicated patients before hospitalization, but the included studies do not report these data. It would also have been interesting to assess prescription maintenance according to drug classes and to the patient’s chronic diseases. The studies included in this review are almost all European, except two, conducted in Israel and Canada. The role of a GP is very different between Canada and the rest of the world as Canadian pharmacists are allowed to renew prescriptions [ 35 – 37 ]. Hence, in Canada, less attention is paid to the role of GPs in the maintenance of hospital discharge prescriptions. The study can be extended to the whole world, however, since patients discharged from any hospital have a discharge prescription that needs to be reviewed. The main limitation of this systematic review was the bias concerning the heterogeneity of the design and setting of the included studies, which made it impossible to perform a meta-analysis. The primary objectives differed between studies. Similarly, the definition of prescription maintenance was not identical in all the studies: a drug substitution or a change in dosage was not systematically counted as a modification. In this systematic review only two studies included more than 300 patients [ 21 , 29 ], which was the adequate sample size in order to assess the maintenance of discharge prescriptions according to the calculation made by Gasperini (for an 80% assumption of maintenance of discharge prescriptions, an alpha risk of 0.05 and a power of 80%) [ 5 ]. Another limitation is that none of the included studies mention intentional non-maintenance or explore the reasons for non-maintenance. GPs indeed have a long-standing relationship with the patient and a full access to historical records. This allows them to judgements about their medicines optimisation more precisely, unlike hospital practitioners who may focus more on acute diseases. Conclusion This systematic review presents the proportions of maintenance of hospital-modified discharge prescriptions in elderly patients by GPs. Deprescriptions made during hospitalization are largely respected by GPs post hospital discharge. Medication reconciliation may be an effective intervention to maintain modified discharge prescriptions in the community if the reconciliation is appropriately communicated between the hospital and the community. The systematic justification of all medicine changes in the discharge letter, as well as their sending to GPs, seem to be the main recommendations of this study for professional practice. Patient adherence is another key point in the prevention of adverse drug events. Interventions, such as therapeutic education should be set up to ensure these modified discharge prescriptions are maintained by patients themselves. The next question raised by this review is to know whether or not GPs reassess hospital discharge prescriptions before maintaining them. Supplementary Information Supplementary Material 1. (36.4KB, docx) Supplementary Material 2. (25.5KB, docx) Supplementary Material 3. (163.1KB, pdf) Supplementary Material 4. (1.2MB, docx) Acknowledgements The authors thank Stella Ghouti and Andrew Pearson, native English speakers and qualified translators, for their assistance. Authors’ contributions All authors contributed to the study conception and design.Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by JG and CS.The first draft of the manuscript was written by JG and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript.All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Funding The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript. Data availability Data is provided within the manuscript or supplementary information files. Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate No approval was necessary. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Footnotes Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. References 1. Castaing E. (Drees/Direction). L’état de santé de la population en France. 2022. 2. The dangers of polypharmacy. and the case for deprescribing in older adults. Natl. Inst. Aging. 2021. Available from: https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/dangers-polypharmacy-and-case-deprescribing-older-adults .  Cited 4Jun 2025. 3. Andro M, Estivin S, Gentric A. 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