Medication Reviews in Elderly in Primary Care

Region Skane

Status: Completed

Conditions: Drug Utilization Review

Treatments: Other: Medication review

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04040855

2018/8

Details and patient eligibility

About

The study is a follow-up of a randomized controlled study performed in 2011-2012 with medication reviews in elderly patients in Sweden. Additional data about mortality and hospital admissions have been collected.

Full description

Background Drug-related problems among the elderly population are common and increasing. Multi-professional medication reviews (MR) have arisen as a method to optimize drug therapy for frail elderly patients. Research has not yet been able to show conclusive evidence of the effect of MRs on mortality or hospital admissions. Aim The aim of this study was to assess the impact of MRs' on hospital admissions and mortality after six and 12 months in a frail population of 369 patients in primary care in a randomized controlled study. Methods Patients were blindly randomized to an intervention group (receiving MRs) and a control group (receiving usual care). Descriptive data on mortality and hospital admissions at six and 12 months were collected. Survival analysis was performed for time to death and time to the first hospital admission within 12 months.

Enrollment: 369 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 75+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• age>75 years, living in nursing homes or community-dwelling with municipality-provided care, with multi-dose drug dispensing

Exclusion criteria

• lack of multi-dose drug dispensing, living at home with no municipality-provided care, <75 years old

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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369 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Patients in the intervention groups received multi-professional medication reviews. A nurse performed a symptom evaluation, a pharmacist assessed the drug list and made adjustment suggestions and finally a physician took action and performed medication changes.

Treatment:

Other: Medication review

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Patients were treated according to the usual routine.