Prevention of Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing in Late Life Using Screening Tool of Older Persons' Potentially Inappropriate Prescriptions (STOPP) and Screening Tool to Alert Doctors to Right Treatment (START) Criteria

NCT00915824 | Unknown Phase 4

• 1 other identifier: CRT2006029
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 400
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Potentially inappropriate prescribing is common in older patients and encompasses overuse, misuse and underuse of medications. Potentially inappropriate prescribing is associated with negative outcomes including adverse drug events and hospitalization. STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Person's potentially inappropriate Prescriptions) and START (Screening Tool to Alert doctors to Right Treatment) is a new screening tool designed to detect instances of potentially inappropriate medication use and under-prescribing of clinically indicated medications in older patients. The purpose of this study is to determine whether clinical implementation of STOPP/START criteria in hospitalized older patients is effective in improving prescribing quality.

Conditions

Healthy

Keywords

Drug therapy; Prescribing; Appropriateness; Randomized controlled trial; STOPP/START criteria; Appropriateness of prescribing in older patients; Prescription Drugs

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Appropriateness of prescribing using the Medication Appropriateness Index and the Assessment of Underutilization of Medication Tool

  Measured on admission, discharge and at 2, 4 and 6 months post-discharge

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Composite health resource utilization including hospital readmission and primary care consultations

  at 2, 4 and 6 months post-discharge

Study Arms (1)

STOPP/START intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

STOPP/START intervention group

Other: STOPP/START criteria

Interventions

STOPP/START criteria OTHER

Application of STOPP/START criteria to the patient's prescription and diagnostic information with subsequent written recommendation on pharmaceutical care to the patient's medical team

STOPP/START intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 65 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• All patients aged 65 years and older admitted to the general medical services of Cork University Hospital, Cork, Ireland

You may not qualify if:

• Patient admitted to a geriatric medicine service, psychiatry of old age service or clinical pharmacology service, or under review of these services during the previous 12 months
• Critically ill patient (admitted to the intensive care unit)
• Terminally ill patient
• Refusal of patient or hospital physician to participate
• No time for the research physician to enrol the patient within 3 days of admission

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Cork University Hospital: lead

Study Sites (1)

Cork University Hospital

Cork, Ireland

Location

MeSH Terms

Interventions

Potentially Inappropriate Medication List

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Quality Assurance, Health Care; Quality of Health Care; Health Services Administration; Health Care Quality, Access, and Evaluation

Study Officials

• Paul Gallagher, MB MRCPI

  Cork University Hospital

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

• Denis O'Mahony, MD FRCPI

  Cork University Hospital

  STUDY DIRECTOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: phase 4
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: June 4, 2009
• First Posted: June 8, 2009
• Study Start: November 1, 2007
• Primary Completion: June 1, 2009
• Study Completion: June 1, 2009
• Last Updated: October 29, 2009

Record last verified: 2009-10

Locations

IE (1)