Exploring the feasibility of implementing PSIs in prison settings
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A study to explore the feasibility of implementing prescribing safety indicators (indicators of potentially hazardous prescribing and medication monitoring practice) within prison settings
IRAS ID
261524
Contact name
Richard Keers
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 1 days
Research summary
Prescribing safety indicators (PSIs) are statements describing potentially hazardous prescribing or monitoring practices that may lead to patient harm. Though they have been used in hospital and primary care settings to assess and monitor the quality and safety of prescribing, they have not been applied to the prison setting. This study aims to explore the feasibility of implementing PSIs into prisons to address medication safety challenges. This will be achieved by two parallel workstreams: Workstream 1, (quantitative) and workstream 2 (qualitative). Workstream 1 will operationalise and feasibility-test a suite of PSIs suitable for the prison setting to
• assess whether the PSIs can be operationalised
• explore the sensitivity and specificity of PSIs
• extract baseline data for patients at risk from poor/hazardous prescribing and monitoring practice
• explore the prevalence and nature of these events.
Pharmacist collaborators at three prison sites in England and Wales who will conduct the testing (perform searches and extract data), have been identified through professional networks. They will use existing data from prisoner health records that they ordinarily have access to, in their usual places of work. They will fully anonymise any data before sending it securely to the research team. The data extraction process will take 5 months to complete. Workstream 2 will explore perceptions of up to 30 healthcare staff in prison settings using individual semi-structured interviews. These research participants will have a current role in prison healthcare provision, and an interest in medication safety. Interviews will explore perceptions of barriers and enablers to safer prescribing in prisons, and explore how PSIs could be applied to prisons. The qualitative part of the study will take five months to complete. This study is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research Capability Fund held by Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (ref RCF14GH2).REC name
North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/NW/0265
Date of REC Opinion
23 May 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion