Q-PROMPPT: Qualitative study to design the PROMPPT intervention
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Q-PROMPPT: A multimethod qualitative study to inform design of a proactive clinical review of patients prescribed opioid medicines long-term for persistent pain, led by clinical pharmacists in primary care teams (PROMPPT intervention)
IRAS ID
255634
Contact name
Christian Mallen
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Keele University
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
TBC, ResearchRegistry.com
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 28 days
Research summary
Persistent pain affects almost half of UK adults. Use of opioids (morphine-like painkillers) for persistent pain has dramatically increased but opioids do not help most patients and often cause side-effects. People taking regular opioids are also more likely to suffer bone fractures, addiction and overdose. Guidelines say patients on long-term opioids should be reviewed regularly, but often this does not happen.
This study, the first stage of a 5-year National Institute for Health Research funded research programme, aims to find out how to train clinical pharmacists, working in GP practices, to improve review of patients using opioids for persistent pain and support them to reduce opioids (where appropriate) and self-manage their pain.
The study has four parts:
1. Individual interviews with 15 patients, 15 clinical pharmacists and 15 GPs to find out their views on using opioids for persistent pain, reducing opioids and clinical pharmacist reviews.
2. An online research blog will be set up for 3 months so that people with experience of persistent pain and using pain medicines can share their views on a series of topics related to using opioids for persistent pain, reducing opioids and clinical pharmacist reviews in an online discussion forum.
The views collected from the interviews and research blog, together with published guidelines, will be used to design the first version of a new clinical pharmacist review (PROMPPT) with a stakeholder group of patients and expert clinicians.
3. Repeated testing of PROMPPT, with 3 clinical pharmacists in 3 GP practices and 15 patients. Patients and clinical pharmacists will provide feedback in ‘think aloud’ interviews, which will be used to improve PROMPPT.
4. Two focus groups, each with 6-8 clinical pharmacists, will discuss how to train clinical pharmacists to deliver PROMPPT.
The final version of PROMPPT will be tested in a future study.REC name
East of England - Cambridge East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/EE/0151
Date of REC Opinion
2 May 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion