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

Phase 4

• Conditions: Healthy
• Interventions: Other: STOPP/START criteria

• Registration Number: NCT00915824
• Lead Sponsor: Cork University Hospital

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.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2007-11
• Primary Completion: 2009-06
• Study Completion: 2009-06
• Study First Submitted: 2009-06-04
• Study First Submitted QC: 2009-06-05
• Study First Posted: 2009-06-08
• Status Verified: 2009-10
• Last Update Submitted: 2009-10-28
• Last Update Posted: 2009-10-29

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: UNKNOWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 400

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

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
STOPP/START intervention	STOPP/START criteria	STOPP/START intervention group

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
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 Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Composite health resource utilization including hospital readmission and primary care consultations	at 2, 4 and 6 months post-discharge

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Cork University Hospital; 🇮🇪 Cork, Ireland