Intervention to Improve Prescribing in Elderly Patients

Intervention to Improve Appropriate Prescribing and Reduce Polypharmacy in Elderly Patients Admitted to an Internal Medicine Unit

This study tested the efficacy of an easy-to-use checklist aimed at supporting the therapeutic reasoning of physicians in order to reduce inappropriate prescribing and polypharmacy in elderly adults admitted to an internal medicine unit.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Elderly Internal Medicine Patients
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Checklist

Detailed Description

Background: Polypharmacy and inappropriate medication prescriptions are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Most interventions proposed to improve appropriate prescribing are time and resource intensive and therefore hardly applicable in daily clinical practice.

Objective: To test the efficacy of an easy-to-use checklist aimed at supporting the therapeutic reasoning of physicians in order to reduce inappropriate prescribing and polypharmacy.

Design: single-center, interventional, quasi-experimental before-after study. Patients: Consecutive patients aged ≥65 years, hospitalized in the division of internal medicine of a Swiss secondary-level hospital from September to November 2012 (control group, N=450) and from September to November 2013 (intervention group, N=450).

Intervention: Introduction of a 5-point checklist to be used by all physicians on the internal medicine wards.

Main Measures: The proportion of patients with prescription of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) at discharge, according to Screening tool of older people's prescriptions (STOPP) criteria, and the number of prescribed medications at discharge, before and after the introduction of the checklist. Secondary outcomes were the prevalence of polypharmacy (≥ 5 drugs) and hyperpolypharmacy (≥ 10 drugs), and the prevalence of potentially inappropriate prescribing omissions (PPOs) according to START criteria.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 450
• Phase: Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 65 years and older (Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Consecutive patients aged ≥65 years,
• patients hospitalized in the division of internal medicine of a Swiss secondary-level hospital from September to November 2012 (control group, N=450) and from September to November 2013 (intervention group, N=450).

Exclusion Criteria:

• none

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Other: After introduction of the checklist; Review of medications of all consecutive admitted patients during the study period using a checklist	Other: Checklist; Introduction of a 5-point checklist to be used by all physicians on the internal medicine wards to review and adapt the medications of the patient.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in the proportion of patients prescribed potentially inappropriate medications (PIM) at discharge	The proportion of patients prescribed PIMs at discharge, according to STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Person's potentially inappropriate Prescriptions) criteria, before and after the introduction of the checklist.	In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Change in the number of prescribed medications at discharge	Number of prescribed medications at discharge, before and after the introduction of the checklist.	In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Number of prescribed drugs at admission and discharge		In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Prevalence of polypharmacy at admission and discharge	concomitant use of more than 5 drugs	In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Prevalence of hyperpolypharmacy at admission and discharge	concomitant use of more than 10 drugs	In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Prevalence of potentially inappropriate prescribing omissions (PPO) at admission and discharge	according to START (Screening Tool of Alert doctors to the Right Treatment) criteria	In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Number of patients prescribed NSAID at admission and discharge	Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID)	In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Rate (%) of inappropriate prescriptions of NSAID at admission and discharge	Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID)	In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Number of patients prescribed proton pump inhibitors at admission and discharge	proton pump inhibitor (PPI)	In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Rate (%) of inappropriate prescriptions of proton pump inhibitors at admission and discharge	proton pump inhibitor (PPI)	In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Number of patients prescribed systemic corticosteroids at admission and discharge		In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Rate (%) of inappropriate prescriptions of systemic corticosteroids at admission and discharge		In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Number of patients prescribed metamizole at admission and discharge		In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
Rate (%) of inappropriate prescriptions of metamizole at admission and discharge		In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
In-Hospital mortality rate		In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)
All-cause re-hospitalization rate	re-hospitalization rate 30 days after discharge	In the 3 months after introduction of the checklist (Sept.-Nov. 2013, intervention group) and in 3 months (Sept.-Nov. 2012) one year before the introduction of the checklist (control group)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Stefano Bassetti, MD, University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: September 1, 2013
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 1, 2013
• Study Completion (Actual): December 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 29, 2016
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 14, 2016
• First Posted (Estimate): March 18, 2016

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): January 4, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 2, 2017
• Last Verified: January 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Polypharmacy; Clinical decision-making
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2013/039

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: De-identified individual participant data are available.