Trial reportEuropean journal of clinical pharmacology2018
Changes in prescription patterns in older hospitalized patients: the impact of FORTA on disease-related over- and under-treatments.
Trial report in European journal of clinical pharmacology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Withdrawal of antihypertensive drugs in older people.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Interventions to improve the appropriate use of polypharmacy for older people.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Medication review in hospitalised patients to reduce morbidity and mortality.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Interventions to improve the appropriate use of polypharmacy for older people.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Higher Fit-fOR-The-Aged (FORTA) Scores Comprising Medication Errors are Associated with Impaired Cognitive and Physical Function Tests in the VALFORTA Trial.Drugs & aging · 2019Trial
- Factors associated with potentially inappropriate medication use, medication underuse and overuse in older adults in the German National Cohort.Journal of internal medicine · 2026Article
- [Concepts to improve medication safety in older patients].Innere Medizin (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2026Review
- [The FORTA (Fit fOR The Aged) List].Innere Medizin (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2024Review
- The EURO-FORTA (Fit fOR The Aged) List Version 2: Consensus Validation of a Clinical Tool for Improved Pharmacotherapy in Older Adults.Drugs & aging · 2023Article
- Observational
- Impact of Pharmaceutical Interventions in Hospitalized Patients: A Comparative Study Between Clinical Pharmacists and an Explicit Criteria-Based Tool.Current therapeutic research, clinical and experimental · 2021Article
- The FORTA (Fit fOR The Aged) List 2018: Third Version of a Validated Clinical Tool for Improved Drug Treatment in Older People.Drugs & aging · 2019Article
- The Use of Medicines with Anti-cholinergic Properties and Their Health Impacts among Hospitalised Malaysian Geriatric Patients.The Malaysian journal of medical sciences : MJMS · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purposePhysicians often face difficulties in choosing appropriate medications for multimorbid older people. The FORTA (Fit for the Aged) classification (A: absolutely, B: beneficial, C: careful, D: don't) was proposed as a clinical tool for improving the quality of drug treatment in the aged. As an implicit tool, FORTA has been shown to aid medication optimization and improve clinical end points in the VALFORTA trial. In this prospective randomized controlled study, 207 older hospitalized patients received standard geriatric treatment and 202 patients received FORTA-guided treatment.
methodsHere, changes of drug prescriptions at the anatomical-therapeutic-chemical system (ATC) level were evaluated separately for important diagnoses in descriptive analyses; over- and under-treatment rates were compared between groups.
resultsAt the individual drug/drug class level related to all important diagnoses, the application of FORTA significantly improved under-treatments for 12 drugs/drug classes (e.g., ACE inhibitors to treat arterial hypertension) and over-treatments for 7 drugs/drug classes (e.g., proton pump inhibitors to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease).
conclusionsFORTA representing the first combined positive/negative labeling approach at the individual drug level aids the optimization of drug treatment in older people as detected for drugs/drug classes at the ATC level in important indications. FORTA is effective in addressing over- and under-treatments even if analyzed for smaller subgroups of VALFORTA.
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