Effectiveness of a Postal Intervention to Improve the Use of PPI

Osakidetza

Status: Completed

Conditions: Drug Overdose

Treatments: Other: Letter by post to patients

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03840018

EVB-IBP-2017-01

Details and patient eligibility

About

It was a randomised intervention study, with before-and-after outcome measures and a control group, in patients who had an active long-term prescription for PPIs at high doses for at least 6 months.

Full description

The intervention consisted of sending patients an informative letter by post, in which their doctor invited them to seek an appointment for a medication review. Control group patients did not receive such a letter, and they were treated as usual (their doctors received a list of identifiers of patients on high doses).

The main outcome variable was the number of active prescriptions of each PPI dose (high dose/standard dose/treatment cessation) at 6 months after the intervention.

Enrollment: 401 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients under the care of our organisation who in May 2017 had an active long-term prescription for PPIs at high doses for at least 6 months.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients whose GPs declined to participate

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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401 participants in 2 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Sending doctors the lists of patients that meet the inclusion criteria to have their treatment reviewed

Letter by post to patients

Other group

Description:

Patients were sent a letter explaining the risks of using PPIs at long-term high doses and encouraging them to visit their doctor

Treatment:

Other: Letter by post to patients