[Impact of an evaluation of the professional practices on the relevance of proton pump inhibitors prescriptions pertinence at the hospital]

Introduction: Proton pump inhibitors (PPI) are widely prescribed for unrecognized indications, at high a dose and for a long duration, in spite of side effects and numerous drug interactions. In 2009, the HAS (French Health Authority) published recommendations of good prescription but the latter are poorly respected. In this context of over prescription and additional cost for the society, we performed a professional practice evaluation of on the model of the Deming wheel. The objective of this work was to optimize the relevance of the prescriptions of the IPP in two services of internal medicine and geriatrics through an evaluation of the professional practices. All PPI prescriptions introduced in outpatient visits or during hospitalization were analyzed.

Patients and methods: Data collection was prospective, over two periods of 2 months and included 163 (first phase), then 139 patients (second phase). An assessment grid of PPI prescriptions was completed by physicians regarding the active substance, the dose, the duration and the indication of the prescription. The relevance of the prescription corresponded to PPI with a conformed indication and duration and to the prescriptions no recommended stopped. Following the first period of data collection, information was given to medical students and physicians on the relevance of their prescriptions with regard to the current recommendations and informative flyers were offered with the aim of improving the practices before the second period of evaluation (second phase).

Results: During the first phase, only 25% of the pre-hospital prescriptions and 33% of the hospital prescriptions respected the HAS recommendations. The main indication of the PPI was the prevention of peptic ulcers in a context of associated drug estimated at risk. An improvement of the global relevance of prescription was observed after awareness of the physicians: 26% relevance during the first phase and 60% in the second one (P<0.012). During the second phase, the part of PPI prescriptions introduced at hospital decreased from 33 to 17% and the discontinuation of the not corresponding prescriptions increased from 6 to 33%, with an additional information given to the general practitioner (P<0.001). However, during the second phase, 33% of the prescriptions introduced in hospitalization were always not corresponding and 61% of the not corresponding prescriptions begun in outpatient visits were always pursued on discharge, probably due to the lack of sufficient information to stop the prescription.

Conclusion: Our study underlines the frequent disrespect of the indications in the prescription of PPI. Interestingly, a professional practices evaluation improved the relevance of the prescriptions with a more frequent withdrawal of the not corresponding exposure and a decrease in global not corresponding prescriptions. Our study suggests that it is crucial to regularly inform physicians on the good prescription of PPI. Patient information focused on the indications and the limited duration of PPI prescription, potentially severe side effects of chronic exposure and on the risk of drug interactions also remains necessary in order to facilitate the stop of the exposure and restrict self-medication.