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

This study is ongoing, but not recruiting participants.

First Received: June 4, 2009 Last Updated: June 5, 2009 History of Changes

Sponsors and Collaborators:	Cork University Hospital Health Research Board
Information provided by:	Cork University Hospital
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:	NCT00915824

Purpose

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.

Condition	Intervention	Phase
Healthy	Other: STOPP/START criteria	Phase IV

Study Type:	Interventional
Study Design:	Randomized, Open Label, Active Control, Parallel Assignment, Safety/Efficacy Study
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.

Further study details as provided by Cork University Hospital:

Primary Outcome Measures:

Appropriateness of prescribing using the Medication Appropriateness Index and the Assessment of Underutilization of Medication Tool [ Time Frame: Measured on admission, discharge and at 2, 4 and 6 months post-discharge ] [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]

Secondary Outcome Measures:

Composite health resource utilization including hospital readmission and primary care consultations [ Time Frame: at 2, 4 and 6 months post-discharge ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]

Enrollment:	400
Study Start Date:	November 2007
Estimated Study Completion Date:	June 2009
Primary Completion Date:	June 2009 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)

Arms	Assigned Interventions
STOPP/START intervention: Experimental STOPP/START intervention group	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

Eligibility

Ages Eligible for Study:	65 Years and older
Genders Eligible for Study:	Both
Accepts Healthy Volunteers:	Yes

Criteria

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

Contacts and Locations

Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00915824

Locations

Ireland
Cork University Hospital
Cork, Ireland

Sponsors and Collaborators

Cork University Hospital

Health Research Board

Investigators

Principal Investigator:	Paul Gallagher, MB MRCPI	Cork University Hospital
Study Director:	Denis O'Mahony, MD FRCPI	Cork University Hospital

More Information

No publications provided

Responsible Party:	Department of Geriatric Medicine, Cork University Hospital ( Dr. Paul Gallagher, Clinical Research Fellow )
Study ID Numbers:	CRT2006029
Study First Received:	June 4, 2009
Last Updated:	June 5, 2009
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:	NCT00915824 History of Changes
Health Authority:	Ireland: Ministry of Health

Keywords provided by Cork University Hospital:

Drug therapy
Prescribing
Appropriateness
Randomized controlled trial

STOPP/START criteria
Appropriateness of prescribing in older patients
Prescription Drugs

Study placed in the following topic categories:

Healthy

ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 03, 2009