The effect of computer reminders on prescribing behaviour of GPs

ISRCTN	ISRCTN16576123
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN16576123
Secondary identifying numbers	NTR270

Submission date: 20/12/2005
Registration date: 20/12/2005
Last edited: 14/10/2008

Recruitment status: No longer recruiting
Overall study status: Completed
Condition category: Other

Prospectively registered

Protocol

Statistical analysis plan

Results

Individual participant data

Record updated in last year

Plain English summary of protocol

Not provided at time of registration

Contact information

Dr Jody Martens
Scientific

Academic Hospital Maastricht
onderzoeker FTTO, BZe VII
P.O. Box 5800
Maastricht
6202 AZ
Netherlands

Phone	+31 (0)43 387 7390/7388
Email	jd.martens@caphri.unimaas.nl

Study information

Study design	Cluster randomised, single blind, active controlled, crossover trial
Primary study design	Interventional
Secondary study design	Randomised controlled trial
Study setting(s)	GP practice
Study type	Diagnostic
Scientific title
Study objectives	We hypothesised that this strategy could lead to a considerable and relevant change of prescribing behaviour in the desired direction.
Ethics approval(s)	Received from the local medical ethics committee
Health condition(s) or problem(s) studied	GP prescribing behaviour
Intervention	A clustered RCT with incomplete block design was executed in the Maastricht and Eastern-South Limburg region. Randomisation took place on practice level into two blocks: 25 GPs received reminders on antibiotics and asthma/chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) prescriptions, 28 GPs received reminders on cholesterol prescriptions. All GPs were told that they were participating in a trial, but they were blind for the fact that they only received part of the prescribing reminders. A computer-reminder-system with reactive reminders was developed to lead to a change in prescribing behaviour in the desired direction. All relevant prescription was written to a special database. GPs were obliged to register a diagnosis for all patients with asthma/COPD, cholesterol related disease or infections for which antibiotics were prescribed. The diagnosis, anamnesis, prescription information as well as information about the patient and GP in question was written to this database. The character of the reminders could be less or more persuasive and contained various types of reminders: alternative type of drugs, other doses, alternative drug administration, specific indication, other length of prescribing, not to prescribe anything or refer to specialist. The guidelines on which the reminders were based were developed by multidisciplinary expert teams. The topics were selected because of high prevalence of the health problems and contained antibiotics, asthma/COPD related drugs and cholesterol lowering drugs.
Intervention type	Other
Primary outcome measure	The central measure in our trial: prescription according to the guideline recommendation as a percentage of total prescriptions of that drug in block A and B.
Secondary outcome measures	Other measures are: absolute number of reminders per GP per year/ per total patient contacts per year in block A and B
Overall study start date	01/10/2003
Completion date	01/10/2006

Eligibility

Participant type(s)	Patient
Age group	Adult
Sex	Both
Target number of participants	53 GPs
Key inclusion criteria	One inclusion criterion for inviting GPs to the intervention was using a specific medical information system for GPs called MicroHis.
Key exclusion criteria	Does not comply with the above inclusion criteria
Date of first enrolment	01/10/2003
Date of final enrolment	01/10/2006

Locations

Countries of recruitment

Netherlands

Study participating centre

Academic Hospital Maastricht

Maastricht
6202 AZ
Netherlands

Sponsor information

Care and Public Health Research Institute (CAPHRI) (The Netherlands)
Research organisation

University Maastricht
P.O. Box 616
Maastricht
6200 MD
Netherlands

Phone	+31 (0)43 388 2446
Email	e.habets@caphri.unimaas.nl
Website	http://www.caphri.nl/
"ROR"	https://ror.org/02jz4aj89

Funders

Funder type

Other

VGZ Eindhoven (The Netherlands)

No information available

CZ Health Insurance Company (CZ Actief in Gezondheid) (Netherlands)

No information available

Results and Publications

Intention to publish date
Individual participant data (IPD) Intention to share	No
IPD sharing plan summary	Not provided at time of registration
Publication and dissemination plan	Not provided at time of registration
IPD sharing plan