Guirguis 2001.
| Study characteristics | ||
| Methods |
A pilot study to evaluate the impact of pharmacists as certified diabetes educators on the clinical and humanistic outcomes of people with diabetes Patient RCT, conducted with residents of the Edmonton area, Canada Two arms: 1. Control (control arm) and 2. Intervention (intervention arm) |
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| Participants | Control arm N: 29 Intervention arm N: 33 Diabetes type: type 2 Mean age: 59.5 ± 10.9 % Male: 53.5 Longest follow‐up: 6 months |
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| Interventions |
Control arm: None Intervention arm: 1) Case management 2) Patient education 3) Promotion of self‐management |
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| Outcomes | 1) HbA1c, mean % (SD) Control arm: pre 7.9 (1.3), post 7.1 (NR) Intervention arm: pre 7.9 (2.2), post 6.9 (NR) |
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| Funding source | Supported by a grant from the Canadian Diabetes Association in honour of Alice Minerva Tufteland, Shoppers Drug Mart, and the Alberta Pharmaceutical Association. In addition, Bayer Inc., LifeScan, Medisense and Roche contributed monitoring devices and test strips provided to study participants. | |
| Notes | — | |
| Risk of bias | ||
| Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) | Unclear risk | Not reported. |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Unclear risk | Not reported. |
| Patient's baseline characteristics (selection bias) | Low risk | The intervention and control groups had similar demographic characteristics with the exception of the method of diabetes treatment (Table 1), where participants in the control group were more likely to use medications to treat diabetes. |
| Patient's baseline outcomes (selection bias) | Low risk | The intervention and control groups had similar demographic characteristics. |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) | Low risk | Over the course of the study 13 participants (21%) dropped out. There was a comparable number of dropouts from the intervention (n = 7) and control (n = 6) groups. |
| Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) and of outcome assessors (detection bias) | Low risk | Objective measurement of outcomes. To avoid inter‐site variation, all HbA1c were analysed at 1 central laboratory. |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) | Unclear risk | No protocol or registry. Outcomes in methods match those reported in results. |
| Risk of contamination (other bias) | Low risk | Unlikely that control group received intervention. |
| Other bias | Low risk | No other evidence of risk of bias. |