The Effect of Industry-independent Visits to Primary Care Physicians on Medication Prescribing for Pain Relief in Chronic Joint Pain.

Brief summary (from the registry)

Osteoarthritis is a common problem in primary care. Long-term use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for pain relief can lead to serious (gastro-intestinal, cardiovascular and renal) adverse events, that can even result in death. NSAIDs differ in their risk of side effects. Opoid analgesics are sometimes used as an alternative for NSAIDs in patients with osteoarthritis. However, these drugs also can lead to serious adverse events. Simple analgesics are first line treatment in patients with osteoarthritis. NSAIDs and opoid analgesics should be avoided whenever possible. Farmaka (www.farmaka.be) is a non-profit organisation that operates a nationwide academic detailing service in Belgium since 2006. The academic detailing exists of face-to-face educational visits to general practitioners in their practice by a trained visitor with a medical science degree. The aim of these visits is to improve the quality of drug prescribing in primary care. Small scale experiments in the past showed that academic detailing can indeed improve prescribing behavior. The current study wants to examine if nationwide academic detailing on appropriate prescribing of analgesics for chronic pain in osteoarthritis results in a better GP's prescribing behavior. Another research question is whether physician-visitors have more influence on prescribing than non-physician visitors. It is also interesting to examine if the effect of a visit is larger if there exists a longstanding relationship between the academic detailer and the GP. About 4.000 general practices are located in a region where academic detailers of Farmaka are operational and have received a visit at least once before. All these practices will be divided into two study groups in a random manner. The first group of practices will belong to the treatment group. GP's from this group will be offered a face-to-face visit on appropriate prescribing of analgesics for chronic pain in osteoarthritis. The visits will take plac…

Study details

Official title

The Effect of Academic Detailing on Prescribing of Analgesics in Primary Care: a Randomised Controlled Trial

Conditions

• Study Focus: Prescribing of Drugs

Interventions

• Behavioral: academic detailing intervention

Sponsor

Universiteit Antwerpen

Start date

2013-02

Primary completion

2016-01

Sex

All

Healthy volunteers

true

Results posted

No results posted in this snapshot

Countries

Belgium

Total sites listed

1

Eligibility criteria