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

Healthy Clinical Trial

Official title:

Prevention of Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing in Late Life Using STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Persons' Potentially Inappropriate Prescriptions) and START (Screening Tool to Alert Doctors to Right i.e. Appropriate Indicated Treatment): A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Active, not recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT00915824
• Other study ID #: CRT2006029
• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Phase: Phase 4
• First received: June 4, 2009
• Last updated: October 28, 2009
• Start date: November 2007
• Est. completion date: June 2009

Study information

• Verified date: October 2009
• Source: Cork University Hospital
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: Ireland: Ministry of Health
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial 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.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Enrollment: 400
• Est. completion date: June 2009
• Est. primary completion date: June 2009
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 65 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

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

Exclusion Criteria:

• 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

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Safety/Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Open Label

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Healthy

Intervention

Other:
• STOPP/START criteria
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

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Ireland	Cork University Hospital	Cork

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Cork University Hospital

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Ireland, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	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	Yes
Secondary	Composite health resource utilization including hospital readmission and primary care consultations		at 2, 4 and 6 months post-discharge	No