Shaw 2000.
| Study characteristics | ||
| Methods | Parallel randomised trial Study conducted between August 1995 and February 1996 |
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| Participants | Patients discharged from a psychiatric hospital or care of the elderly ward; patients were excluded if they were prescribed medication at discharge, received a primary diagnosis of drug or alcohol abuse or dementia, and refused home visits after discharge. Number of patients recruited: T = 51, C = 46 Mean age (SD): 47 (17) Sex (female): 61 (63%) |
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| Interventions |
Setting: psychiatric hospital in South Glasgow, Scotland Pre‐admission assessment: no Case finding on admission: no Inpatient assessment and preparation of a discharge plan based on individual patient needs: pre‐discharge assessment with a pharmacy checklist which assessed patient's knowledge and identified particular problems, such as therapeutic drug monitoring, compliance aid requirements and side effects Implementation of the discharge plan: a pharmacy discharge plan was supplied to the patients' community pharmacist for the intervention group Monitoring: not clear Control: care not described |
|
| Outcomes | Knowledge about medicines, readmission to hospital, readmission due to non‐compliance, medication problems after being discharged from hospital | |
| Notes |
Funding: Primary Care Development Initiative, Scottish Government Conflicts of interest: not reported Ethical approval: not reported |
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| Risk of bias | ||
| Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) | Low risk | Comment: Table of generated numbers with a randomised permuted block size of 6 |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Low risk | Comment: Randomisation by the project pharmacist |
| Baseline outcome data | Low risk | Comment: Outcomes refer to post‐discharge (readmission) |
| Baseline characteristics similar | Low risk | Comment: Baseline characteristics reported as similar between groups (p.146) |
| Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes | Unclear risk | Comment: Details of how data were collected for readmission and and length of stay were not reported |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes | Unclear risk | Comment: > 30% attrition at 12 weeks |
| Study adequately protected against contamination | Unclear risk | Comment: Intervention was delivered by the pharmacist, who did not have contact with participants allocated to the comparison group. |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) | Unclear risk | Comment: Not able to judge from available information |
| Other bias | Low risk | Comment: Not reported |