Educational and Informative Interventions to Tackle Inappropriate Use of Drugs in Italy
Educational and Informative Interventions to Tackle Inappropriate Use of Drugs in Italy
Pharmacological intervention is an essential step in health promotion. However, lots of drugs
 are often used in inappropriate ways, especially in elderly patients. This study is aiming at
 evaluating the effectiveness of educational and/or informative interventions addressed to
 general practitioners and their adult patients in Italy, in order to improve appropriateness
 of prescribing in primary care.
EDU.RE.DRUG project is a prospective, multicentre, open-label, parallel-arm, controlled,
 pragmatic trial directed to general practitioners (GPs) and their patients from two Italian
 regions (Campania and Lombardy), with the objective of investigating the practice of
 prescribing among GPs to highlight the most frequent events of inappropriateness and to
 implement ad hoc interventions for GPs and patients.

 Appropriateness of prescribing in general practice will be assessed by evaluating selected
 prescribing, consumption and adherence indicators, using Regional administrative
 pharmaceutical prescription databases.

 Primary care physicians and their patients will be assigned to four trial arms: informative
 intervention (leaflets and posters for patients), educational intervention (feedback reports
 and online CME courses for GPs), combined interventions, or no intervention. Intervention
 effectiveness will be assessed measuring the variation in rates of inappropriate prescription
 indicators after 1-year of follow-up.

 EDU.RE.DRUG project will provide with improvements in the prescribing performance of GPs and
 in patients' adherence to treatment, with relevant clinical implications in terms of rational
 and safe use of drugs and optimized patient care, and with economic benefits (optimization of
 available resources use and savings in direct and indirect health costs).
Inclusion Criteria:

 -  general practitioners of the Italian National Health System (NHS) operating at
 December 31, 2016 belonging to the 8 Local Health Units involved in the project

 Exclusion Criteria:

 -  primary care pediatricians