A randomised controlled trial on the efficacy of a multidisciplinary health care team on morbidity and mortality of elderly patients attending the Emergency Department. Study design and preliminary results.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of potentially inadequate drug prescriptions in elderly patients who attend the Emergency Department.

DESIGN: A multicentre randomized clinical trial. Patients over 65 years of age attending the Emergency Department are randomized to the control arm or the intervention arm. In the intervention arm, the pharmacist will review the chronic medication of patients and identify any potentially inadequate prescriptions, according to the STOPP-START criteria. The cases are discussed with the Emergency Specialist and, if considered adequate, a recommendation to modify the treatment is sent to the Primary Care Physician. The control arm will receive the standard of care, not including a systematic review of the adequacy to the STOPP-START criteria. This article presents preliminary outcomes regarding the prevalence of potentially inadequate prescriptions.

OUTCOMES: Four hospitals participated in the study, and 665 patients were included (342 in the control arm and 305 in the intervention arm). The mean age in the control arm was 78.2 years vs. 78.99 in the intervention arm. The total number of medications received by patients at the time of inclusion was 3 275. Of these, 9.3% (CI 95%: 8.3-10.4) were considered potentially inadequate prescriptions according to the STOPP criteria. On the other hand, 81.1% (CI 95%: 76.8-85.4) of the patients evaluated presented potentially inadequate prescriptions.

CONCLUSION: This study has detected a high prevalence of potentially inadequate prescriptions in elderly patients attending the Emergency Department.