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
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ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00915824 |
Recruitment Status
: Unknown
Verified October 2009 by Cork University Hospital.
Recruitment status was: Active, not recruiting
First Posted
: June 8, 2009
Last Update Posted
: October 29, 2009
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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 or disease | Intervention/treatment | Phase |
---|---|---|
Healthy | Other: STOPP/START criteria | Phase 4 |
Study Type : | Interventional (Clinical Trial) |
Actual Enrollment : | 400 participants |
Allocation: | Randomized |
Intervention Model: | Parallel Assignment |
Masking: | None (Open Label) |
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. |
Study Start Date : | November 2007 |
Actual Primary Completion Date : | June 2009 |
Estimated Study Completion Date : | June 2009 |
Arm | Intervention/treatment |
---|---|
Experimental: STOPP/START intervention
STOPP/START intervention group
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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
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- 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 ]
- Composite health resource utilization including hospital readmission and primary care consultations [ Time Frame: at 2, 4 and 6 months post-discharge ]

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Ages Eligible for Study: | 65 Years and older (Adult, Senior) |
Sexes Eligible for Study: | All |
Accepts Healthy Volunteers: | Yes |
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

To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT00915824
Ireland | |
Cork University Hospital | |
Cork, Ireland |
Principal Investigator: | Paul Gallagher, MB MRCPI | Cork University Hospital | |
Study Director: | Denis O'Mahony, MD FRCPI | Cork University Hospital |
Responsible Party: | Dr. Paul Gallagher, Clinical Research Fellow, Department of Geriatric Medicine, Cork University Hospital |
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: | NCT00915824 History of Changes |
Other Study ID Numbers: |
CRT2006029 |
First Posted: | June 8, 2009 Key Record Dates |
Last Update Posted: | October 29, 2009 |
Last Verified: | October 2009 |
Keywords provided by Cork University Hospital:
Drug therapy Prescribing Appropriateness Randomized controlled trial |
STOPP/START criteria Appropriateness of prescribing in older patients Prescription Drugs |