Evidence map›Paper›PMID 23718905›Full record

Trial reportThe International journal of pharmacy practice2014

Description and process evaluation of pharmacists' interventions in a pharmacist-led information technology-enabled multicentre cluster randomised controlled trial for reducing medication errors in general practice (PINCER trial).

Rachel Howard, Sarah Rodgers, Anthony J Avery, Aziz Sheikh, PINCER trialists

Abstract readMulticenter StudyRandomized Controlled Trial
In one paragraph

Trial report in The International journal of pharmacy practice, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed, 3 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
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  3. Ambulatory Medication Safety in Primary Care: A Systematic Review.Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM
    Pooled it
  4. Trial
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Rachel HowardSchool of Pharmacy, University of Reading, Reading, UK.
Sarah Rodgers
Anthony J Avery
Aziz Sheikh
PINCER trialists

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectiveTo undertake a process evaluation of pharmacists' recommendations arising in the context of a complex IT-enabled pharmacist-delivered randomised controlled trial (PINCER trial) to reduce the risk of hazardous medicines management in general practices.

methodsPINCER pharmacists manually recorded patients' demographics, details of interventions recommended, actions undertaken by practice staff and time taken to manage individual cases of hazardous medicines management. Data were coded, double-entered into SPSS version 15 and then summarised using percentages for categorical data (with 95% confidence interval (CI)) and, as appropriate, means (± standard deviation) or medians (interquartile range) for continuous data. KEY

findingsPharmacists spent a median of 20 min (interquartile range 10, 30) reviewing medical records, recommending interventions and completing actions in each case of hazardous medicines management. Pharmacists judged 72% (95% CI 70, 74; 1463/2026) of cases of hazardous medicines management to be clinically relevant. Pharmacists recommended 2105 interventions in 74% (95% CI 73, 76; 1516/2038) of cases and 1685 actions were taken in 61% (95% CI 59, 63; 1246/2038) of cases; 66% (95% CI 64, 68; 1383/2105) of interventions recommended by pharmacists were completed and 5% (95% CI 4, 6; 104/2105) of recommendations were accepted by general practitioners (GPs), but not completed at the end of the pharmacists' placement; the remaining recommendations were rejected or considered not relevant by GPs.

conclusionsThe outcome measures were used to target pharmacist activity in general practice towards patients at risk from hazardous medicines management. Recommendations from trained PINCER pharmacists were found to be broadly acceptable to GPs and led to ameliorative action in the majority of cases. It seems likely that the approach used by the PINCER pharmacists could be employed by other practice pharmacists following appropriate training.

Indexed as

Medication Therapy ManagementOutcome Assessment, Health CareProgram DevelopmentAgedEducation, PharmacyFemaleGeneral PracticeHumansMaleMedical InformaticsMedication Errorsmedicines managementmonitoringpatient safetypharmacistprescribingprimary care

Identifiers

PMID23718905
PMCPMC4283977

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.