Table 3.

Characteristics of Included Studies on Interventions for MRPs.

Study design Country	Setting age (in years of participants)	Intervention	Follow up	Outcomes	Relevant findings
Chan et al (2014)46 prospective case- series intervention study Taiwan	Outpatient department Mean age 75.6 ± 6.1	Medication safety review clinic (MSRC) for solving drug related problems (DRPs) among older adults prescribed multiple medications	24 weeks	Patients who had at least one unsolved DRP Changes in the number of total medications Changes in physical functioning Patients satisfaction between weeks 1 and 24	40 unsolved DRPs at week 24. The mean number of chronic medications decreased by 0.4 Unexpected functional decline of 0.5 points Percentage of participants rating their general health as good or better, increased from 22% to 38% in 24 weeks
Gallagher et al (2011)10 A randomized controlled trial UK	Hospital Cork University Hospital Age range ≥65years	Screening of hospitalized older patients’ medication against STOPP/START criteria for PIM/PPO and providing recommendations to the attending medical team	6 months	Medication appropriateness index (MAI) Frequency of unnecessary polypharmacy Prevalence of fall Prevalence of all-cause mortality Length of hospital stay Rate of PIM assessed using STOPP/START criteria	Lower MAI scores at discharge than at admission (absolute risk reduction 35.7%) Reduction in unnecessary polypharmacy (from 20.0% at admission to 5.4% at discharge Non-significant reduction in falls and in all-cause mortality during 6-month follow up STOPP/START PIM increased gradually during the follow up period in both groups
Gillespie et al (2009)43 A randomized controlled trial Sweden	Hospital University Hospital with follow up in community Age range ≥ 80 years Follow up: 12 months	Interventions provided by ward-based pharmacist: Medication reconciliation Performance of drug review Provision of advice to patient’s physician Patients education and monitoring, Patient counseling at discharge Follow up telephone call two months after discharge	12 months	Frequency of hospital visits during a 12-month follow up period	Intervention group vs control group: 16% reduction in all visits to the hospital and a 47% reduction in visits to the emergency department Drug related readmissions were reduced by 80%
Sellors et al (2003)42 A randomized controlled trial Canada	Primary care 24 sites of family practices Age range ≥ 65 years	Pharmacists conducted face-to-face medication reviews with patients in the intervention group. Then gave written recommendations to the physicians Hepler and Strand definitions of DRPs was used	5 months	Number of DRP identified in the intervention arm Proportion of the recommendations implemented by the physicians	Mean of 2.5 DRPs identified in the intervention group No statistically significant difference in number of medicines, or health care use between groups Physicians implemented/attempted to implement 72.3% of recommendations.
Wang et al (2013)44 Randomized control study Taiwan	Community Age range ≥ 65 years	Medication safety program including a coach, and reminders by well-trained volunteers, two home visits and five telephone calls over a two-month period Both groups received routine medication safety instructions for their chronic illness	2 months	Medication safety knowledge Medication safety attitude	After two months of coaching the intervention group demonstrated higher scores than the control group with regard to medication safety knowledge but no significant difference in attitudes scores between two groups