Educational Intervention to Reduce Drug-related Hospitalizations in Elderly Primary Health Care Patients

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

Get a concise snapshot of the trial, including recruitment status, study phase, enrollment targets, and key timeline milestones.

Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

69 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2012-11-30

Study Completion Date

2013-09-30

Brief Summary

Review the sponsor-provided synopsis that highlights what the study is about and why it is being conducted.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether an educational intervention given towards health care providers working in primary health care centers can reduce inappropriate prescribing in the elderly patient and thus reduce number and length of drug-related hospitalizations as well as number of emergency department visits in this patient group.

Related Clinical Trials

Explore similar clinical trials based on study characteristics and research focus.

Medication Reviews in Elderly in Primary Care

NCT04040855

Drug Utilization Review

COMPLETED NA

An Intervention Study to Reduce Drug-related Problems and Readmissions Among Old People With Dementia

NCT01504672

Cognitive Impairment

COMPLETED NA

A Trial to De-prescribe Inappropriate Medications in the Community Dwelling Elderly

NCT02053194

Inappropriate Dose of Drug Administered Health Behavior

COMPLETED PHASE4

Educational and Informative Interventions to Tackle Inappropriate Use of Drugs in Italy

NCT04030468

Inappropriate Drug Prescription and Use

UNKNOWN NA

Medication Reviews Bridging Healthcare: a Cluster-randomised Crossover Trial

NCT02999412

Medication Review

COMPLETED NA

Detailed Description

Dive into the extended narrative that explains the scientific background, objectives, and procedures in greater depth.

Inappropriate medication in the elderly patient leads to substantial morbidity, possibly causing up to 20% of hospitalizations in this patient group (1). To improve prescribing and thus reduce undesired drug effects is a great challenge for doctors and nurses in primary health care.

Performance of drug utilization reviews is recommended in order to reduce the negative impact of inappropriate prescribing in the elderly. However, scientific evidence on their efficacy is lacking, especially regarding patient-related health outcomes (2,3). Most studies are carried out in inpatient care, making it difficult to draw conclusions regarding primary health care (2). Moreover, studies in this scientific field diverge regarding the content and structure of drug utilization reviews, which implies that comparison between studies becomes challenging, if not impossible.

This trial aims at educating health care providers in how to perform drug utilization reviews, and to help them implement theory into practice.

Conditions

See the medical conditions and disease areas that this research is targeting or investigating.

Polypharmacy Adverse Drug Reaction

Study Design

Understand how the trial is structured, including allocation methods, masking strategies, primary purpose, and other design elements.

Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

Primary Study Purpose

PREVENTION

Blinding Strategy

SINGLE

Outcome Assessors

Study Groups

Review each arm or cohort in the study, along with the interventions and objectives associated with them.

Educational intervention

Primary health care centers (PHCC) in the intervention group will be visited twice by a pharmacist within a period of three months. At the first visit, an educational intervention will focus on two properties: on the one hand, feed-back of actual patient data of the PHCC illustrating the primary-health-care-specific characteristics of inappropriate prescribing in the elderly patient will be given. Education of relevant subjects will be given in relation to detected problems. On the other hand, a clinical routine regarding the performance of drug utilization reviews will be developed in cooperation with the health care providers. At the second visit 3 months later, the developed concept will be critically reviewed and eventually developed further.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Educational intervention

Intervention Type OTHER

Primary health care centers (PHCC) in the intervention group will be visited twice by a pharmacist within a period of three months. At the first visit, an educational intervention will focus on two properties: on the one hand, feed-back of actual patient data of the PHCC illustrating the primary-health-care-specific characteristics of inappropriate prescribing in the elderly patient will be given. Education of relevant subjects will be given in relation to detected problems. On the other hand, a clinical routine regarding the performance of drug utilization reviews will be developed in cooperation with the health care providers. At the second visit 3 months later, the developed concept will be critically reviewed and eventually developed further.

Delayed educational intervention

Primary health care centers in the delayed intervention group will receive the same intervention as described above with 9 months delay.

Group Type NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Learn about the drugs, procedures, or behavioral strategies being tested and how they are applied within this trial.

Educational intervention

Primary health care centers (PHCC) in the intervention group will be visited twice by a pharmacist within a period of three months. At the first visit, an educational intervention will focus on two properties: on the one hand, feed-back of actual patient data of the PHCC illustrating the primary-health-care-specific characteristics of inappropriate prescribing in the elderly patient will be given. Education of relevant subjects will be given in relation to detected problems. On the other hand, a clinical routine regarding the performance of drug utilization reviews will be developed in cooperation with the health care providers. At the second visit 3 months later, the developed concept will be critically reviewed and eventually developed further.

Intervention Type OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Check the participation requirements, including inclusion and exclusion rules, age limits, and whether healthy volunteers are accepted.

Inclusion Criteria

* primary health care center in Stockholm County
* authorized by Stockholm County Council since at least 3 years
* at least 5% of patients attributed to primary health care center are 65 years and older
* primary health care center takes care of at least 10 home care patients