Use of an electronic decision support tool to reduce polypharmacy in elderly people with chronic diseases: cluster randomised controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To evaluate the effects of a computerised decision support tool for comprehensive drug review in elderly people with polypharmacy.

Design

Pragmatic, multicentre, cluster randomised controlled trial.

Setting

359 general practices in Austria, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

Participants

3904 adults aged 75 years and older using eight or more drugs on a regular basis, recruited by their general practitioner.

Intervention

A newly developed electronic decision support tool comprising a comprehensive drug review to support general practitioners in deprescribing potentially inappropriate and non-evidence based drugs. Doctors were randomly allocated to either the electronic decision support tool or to provide treatment as usual.

Main outcome

SUBMITTER: Rieckert A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7301164 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature