Enhanced Medication Summaries to reduce high-risk prescribing 01
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Process evaluation of a cluster randomised trial of Enhanced Medication Summaries to reduce high-risk prescribing in people with polypharmacy in primary care
IRAS ID
207479
Contact name
Bruce Guthrie
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Dundee
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 16 days
Research summary
NHS Scotland has produced national polypharmacy guidance aiming to provide a clear structure for managing person-centred medication review. Although current GP electronic medical records contain considerable data needed for medication review, this data, typically spread out over several screens, is not straightforwardly linked and may be a barrier when conducting complex medication reviews. Consequently, NHS A&A in collaboration with UoD have developed and are implementing an informatics tool to support polypharmacy review, and UoD are supporting A&A to evaluate the impact of its system-wide implementation using interrupted time series analysis.
The proposed mixed methods investigation aims to understand whether and how enhanced medication summaries, generated by the informatics tool, are used (or not) in polypharmacy review sessions. The methods used will be face-to-face interviews, observation of polypharmacy reviews, and a brief survey to triangulate our qualitative data.
The primary aim is to determine the extent to which use of enhanced medical summaries can improve the polypharmacy review process. Particularly, we want to determine how such summaries represent and influence clinicians’ prescription choices.
The data gathered from this research will assist in identifying new theoretical models and GPs’ needs relevant to the optimal design of paper-based enhanced medication summaries.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Bradford Leeds Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/YH/0468
Date of REC Opinion
3 Nov 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion