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Exploratory Study to Inventory Opportunities to Optimize Continuity of Pharmacotherapy at Hospital Discharge

Sponsor
KU Leuven (Other)
Overall Status
Completed
CT.gov ID
NCT03223584
Collaborator
(none)
30
Enrollment
1
Location
5
Duration (Months)
6
Patients Per Site Per Month

Study Details

Study Description

Brief Summary

Title of the research:

Exploratory study to inventory opportunities to optimize continuity of pharmacotherapy at hospital discharge

Study area:

Care region Leuven (individual interviews), care region Bruges (individual interviews) and care region Mortsel (One focus group).

Aims:

From an explorative angle, the study aims to identify hurdles, barriers, facilitators and needs that general practitioners and community pharmacists experience with patients who have recently been discharged from a hospital. From a feasibility standpoint, the study aims to investigate what supportive actions are feasible and useful to optimize the care process upon hospital discharge. For this purpose, a discharge document for the community pharmacist will be shown to the healthcare professionals. The HCP will be given the opportunity to give feedback on this document.

Study design:

A non-interventional, qualitative study is set up using face-to-face, semi-structured interviews and a focus group.

Study population:

Community pharmacists and general practitioners that are employed in the study region and that are considered opinion leaders.

Number of health care professionals:

Individual interviews will be organised until there is saturation of information and no new elements are provided in the interviews. At least five community pharmacists and five general practitioners will be interviewed per care region. In addition, a focus group will take place in care region Mortsel.

Procedures:

Upon an informed consent of the healthcare professional, a semi-structured face-to-face interview will take place. The interview will focus on concrete patient cases, provided by the healthcare professional, as well as a fictional case of the researcher. In the focus group, data of the individual interviews will be presented and the relevance and completeness of the information will be assessed. Finally, the aim of the focus group is to reach a consensus on the research questions.

Condition or Disease Intervention/Treatment Phase

    Study Design

    Study Type:
    Observational
    Actual Enrollment :
    30 participants
    Observational Model:
    Case-Only
    Time Perspective:
    Cross-Sectional
    Study Start Date :
    Nov 1, 2015
    Actual Primary Completion Date :
    Apr 1, 2016
    Actual Study Completion Date :
    Apr 1, 2016

    Arms and Interventions

    Arm Intervention/Treatment
    Pharmacists-Leuven

    Individual interviews with approximately 5 pharmacists
    Pharmacists-Bruges

    Individual interviews with approximately 5 pharmacists
    Pharmacists-Mortsel

    A focus group with pharmacists and general practitioners
    General Practitioners-Leuven

    Individual interviews with approximately 5 general practitioners
    General Practitioners-Bruges

    Individual interviews with approximately 5 general practitioners
    General Practitioners-Mortsel

    A focus group with pharmacists and general practitioners

    Outcome Measures

    Primary Outcome Measures

    1. Semi-structured interviews/focus group: Experienced problems and solutions [Approximately 1 hour]

      Experienced problems during counseling of discharged older patients and potential solutions

    2. Semi-structured interviews: Strengths and weaknesses of a proposal for a discharge document for community pharmacist (using open ended questions) [Approximately 1 hour]

      During the interviews, a proposal for a discharge document will be shown to healthcare professionals. They will be asked to give their feedback on the content of the document (not applicable for the focus group)

    Eligibility Criteria

    Criteria

    Ages Eligible for Study:
    N/A and Older
    Sexes Eligible for Study:
    All
    Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
    No
    Inclusion Criteria:

    • Profession: general practitioner or community pharmacists

    • Employment in care regions Leuven, Bruges or Kontich

    • Experience in daily practice

    • Interest in research or optimisation of the healthcare profession. For example supervisors of an internship, local coordinators of general practitioners or pharmacy clusters and active HCP that are linked with professional associations.

    Exclusion Criteria:

    None

    Contacts and Locations

    Locations

    Site City State Country Postal Code
    1 KU Leuven Leuven Vlaams-Brabant Belgium 3000

    Sponsors and Collaborators

    • KU Leuven

    Investigators

    None specified.

    Study Documents (Full-Text)

    None provided.

    More Information

    Publications

    None provided.
    Responsible Party:
    Joke Wuyts, PharmD, KU Leuven
    ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
    NCT03223584
    Other Study ID Numbers:
    • S58480
    First Posted:
    Jul 21, 2017
    Last Update Posted:
    Feb 13, 2018
    Last Verified:
    Feb 1, 2018
    Individual Participant Data (IPD) Sharing Statement:
    No
    Plan to Share IPD:
    No

    Study Results

    No Results Posted as of Feb 13, 2018