Interventions to optimise prescribing for older people in care homes

• Published in: Cochrane database of systematic reviews 2013-01 (2), p.CD009095-CD009095
• Main Authors: Alldred, David P, Raynor, David K, Hughes, Carmel, Barber, Nick, Chen, Timothy F, Spoor, Pat
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aged; Drug Prescriptions - standards; Homes for the Aged; Humans; Inappropriate Prescribing - prevention & control; Medication Reconciliation; Nursing Homes; Quality Improvement - standards; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
• ISSN: 1469-493X
• DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD009095.pub2

There is a substantial body of evidence that prescribing for care home residents is suboptimal and requires improvement. Consequently, there is a need to identify effective interventions to optimise prescribing and resident outcomes in this context. The objective of the review was to determine the effect of interventions to optimise prescribing for older people living in care homes. We searched the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) Group Specialised Register; Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), The Cochrane Library (Issue 11, 2012); Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, The Cochrane Library (Issue 11, 2012); MEDLINE OvidSP (1980 on); EMBASE, OvidSP (1980 on); Ageline, EBSCO (1966 on); CINAHL, EBSCO (1980 on); International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, OvidSP (1980 on); PsycINFO, OvidSP (1980 on); conference proceedings in Web of Science, Conference Proceedings Citation Index - SSH & Science, ISI Web of Knowledge (1990 on); grey literature sources and trial registries; and contacted authors of relevant studies. We also reviewed the references lists of included studies and related reviews (search period November 2012). We included randomised controlled trials evaluating interventions aimed at optimising prescribing for older people (aged 65 years or older) living in institutionalised care facilities. Studies were included if they measured one or more of the following primary outcomes, adverse drug events; hospital admissions;mortality; or secondary outcomes, quality of life (using validated instrument); medication-related problems; medication appropriateness (using validated instrument); medicine costs. Two authors independently screened titles and abstracts, assessed studies for eligibility, assessed risk of bias and extracted data. A narrative summary of results was presented. The eight included studies involved 7653 residents in 262 (range 1 to 85) care homes in six countries. Six studies were cluster-randomised controlled trials and two studies were patient-randomised controlled trials. The interventions evaluated were diverse and often multifaceted. Medication review was a component of seven studies, three studies involved multidisciplinary case-conferencing, two studies involved an educational element for care home staff and one study evaluated the use of clinical decision support technology. Due to heterogeneity, results were not combined in a meta-analysis. There was no evidence of an effect of the inte