Improving Medication Reviews to Polypharmacy Patients

Aalborg University

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Pharmacist Intervention; Polypharmacy Patients

Treatments: Other: Systematic pharmacist intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04945447

Aalborg University

Details and patient eligibility

About

Brief summary: The randomised controlled trial investigates the effect of a pharmacist intervention targeting polypharmacy patient at two levels medical clinics and patient level. The purpose is to gain more knowledge to patients and physicians about their medication and to see changes in the patient's medication and health-related quality of life.

Full description

The main objective of the randomised controlled trial is to investigate the clinical effects of the roll-out of the systematic offer from Nord-KAP in the North Denmark Region at two different levels (medical clinic and patient-level). The primary outcome is changes in the participant's medicine from baseline to follow up and changes in healthcare usage Secondary outcomes include investigation of cost-effectiveness and changes in patients health-related quality of life.

The hypothesis is that the regional intervention delivered by the pharmacists, from Nord-KAP, can lead to a decrease in medical products compared with a control group between baseline and at 6-month follow-up.

• Will the use of a pharmacists intervention lead to a decrease in the number of polypharmacy patients in medical clinics compared to a control group of medical clinics?
• Will the use of a pharmacist intervention lead to an increase in the polypharmacy patients health-related quality of life compared to a control group?

Enrollment: 400 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients with more than 5 medicinal products prescribed besides skin remedies and antibiotic
• Above 18 years
• Patients in continuous medication treatment

Exclusion criteria

• Terminal patients
• Patients who are not motivated to comply with the instruction of the trial
• Do not speak/or understand written Danish
• Patients lacking legal capacity
• Patients living at nursing homes

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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400 participants in 4 patient groups

Intervention group - Medical clinics

Experimental group

Description:

Medical clinics receiving the pharmacist intervention described in the intervention group for patient level

Treatment:

Other: Systematic pharmacist intervention

Control group - medical clinics

No Intervention group

Description:

All medical clinics that are enrolled in the trial will eventually receive the intervention at some point. As some medical clinics act as the control group to being with.

Intervention group - patient level

Experimental group

Description:

The intervention consists of two subgroups: Intervention pharmacist and intervention proposals. As the pharmacist conducts medication reviews of the polypharmacy patients in the medical clinic they can make a note to the physician about fx a specific medication the physician needs to pay attention to. These polypharmacy patients are enrolled in the group intervention proposals and are asked to complete questionaries at baseline and follow-up. Ultimately, it is up to the physician to react to the note in the polypharmacy patients medical record. Therefore the pharmacist only makes a note in the journal of the patient and does nothing else. The group intervention pharmacist is polypharmacy patients where the pharmacist conducts a medication review and develops suggested interventions proposals for each participant

Treatment:

Other: Systematic pharmacist intervention

Control group - patient level

No Intervention group

Description:

The control group will have access to usual care and other health services within the healthcare systems. Participants randomised to the control group are invited to participate in the evaluation of the current treatment in the primary health care sector