Effectiveness of interventions aiming to reduce inappropriate drug prescribing: an overview of interventions

Objective Inappropriate prescribing of drugs is associated with unnecessary harms for patients and healthcare costs. Interventions to reduce these prescriptions are widely studied, yet the effectiveness of different types of interventions remains unclear. Therefore, we provide an overview regarding the effectiveness of intervention types that aim to reduce inappropriate drug prescriptions, unrestricted by target drugs, population or setting. Methods For this overview, systematic reviews (SRs) were used as the source for original studies. EMBASE and MEDLINE were searched from inception to August 2018. All SRs aiming to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to reduce inappropriate prescribing of drugs were eligible for inclusion. The SRs and their original studies were screened for eligibility. Interventions of the original studies were categorized by type of intervention. The percentage of interventions showing a significant reduction of inappropriate prescribing were reported per intervention category. Key findings Thirty-two SRs were included, which provided 319 unique interventions. Overall, 61.4% of these interventions showed a significant reduction in inappropriate prescribing of drugs. Strategies that were most frequently effective in reducing inappropriate prescribing were multifaceted interventions (73.2%), followed by interventions containing additional diagnostic tests (anti-biotics) (70.4%), computer interventions (69.2%), audit and feedback (66.7%), patient-mediated interventions (62.5%) and multidisciplinary (team) approach (571%). The least frequently effective intervention was an education for healthcare professionals (50.0%). Conclusion The majority of the interventions were effective in reducing inappropriate prescribing of drugs. Multifaceted interventions most frequently showed a significant reduction of inappropriate prescribing. Education for healthcare professionals is the most frequently included intervention in this overview, yet this category is least frequently effective.