The purpose of this study is to determine the effectiveness of maximal support of community pharmacies to implement a pharmaceutical care model for improving underprescription and treatment persistence regarding lipid-lowering medication in patients with cardiovascular disease.
Cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death in large parts of the world. Next to life style changes, pharmaceutical treatment is a keystone in the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Despite the strong evidence for the effectiveness of lipid-lowering therapy, less than half of the people eligible are treated. With specific medication searches in the community pharmacy database, an easy tool for detecting patients who are undertreated is available. Based on this tool, a pharmaceutical care model for improving underprescription and treatment persistence regarding lipid-lowering medication in patients with cardiovascular disease was constructed. Moreover, it is not known yet how to implement this pharmaceutical care model in community pharmacies effectively. With multifaceted interventions the behaviour of health professionals can be changed. In this study the effectiveness of a maximal support strategy, including interactive educational meetings, reminders, audit and feedback, is compared to a minimal implementation strategy.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
70
educational manual; interactive educational meeting tailored to individual needs; reminders and feedback by 3 newsletters and at least 3 telephone calls.
educational manual
UMC St Radboud, Scientific Institute for Quality of Healthcare
Nijmegen, NL, Netherlands
The percentage of selected (=undertreated) patients receiving at least one prescription for lipid-lowering medication.
Time frame: six months after the general practitioner received the list with selected patients
Differences in prescribing for age categories and co-medication.
Time frame: six months
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