Intensive community pharmacy intervention had little impact on triptan consumption: A randomized controlled trial

Figures & data

Figure 1.  Flow chart.

Table I.  Characteristics of triptan users in intervention and control groups: Number (percentage of total users within each group) unless otherwise stated.

	Intervention	Control
Number of users	1123	1340
Females	940 (83.7)	1099 (82.0)
Age, years, median (IQR)	47 (38–54)	46 (38–54)
Incident users^1	269 (24.0)	348 (26.0)
Prevalent users^2	854 (76.0)	992 (74.0)
Average pre-intervention triptan consumption†
< 6 doses per month	641 (57.0)	741 (55.3)
≥ 6 and <15 doses per month	173 (15.4)	203 (15.1)
≥ 15 doses per month	40 (3.6)	48 (3.6)
Median (IQR), doses per month	2.7 (1.3–6.0)	3.3 (1.3–6.6)

¹No prescriptions 9 months before index date. ²One or more prescriptions 9 months before index date.

Table II.  Geometric means of patients’ triptan consumption (doses per month) for 3-, 6-, and 9-month periods before and after visiting an intervention or control pharmacy: Effect of intervention expressed as an intervention/control ratio (desired effect: less consumption in intervention group, ratio < 1),¹ divided by incident and prevalent users and stratified by baseline consumption (95% CI adjusted for clustering at pharmacy level).

	Intervention		Control
	Before	After	Before	After	Intervention/control^1
3 months
Incident users	–	2.53 (2.45, 2.61)	–	2.46 (2.29, 2.64)	1.02 (0.95, 1.12)
Prevalent users	4.18 (3.90, 4.49)	7.07 (6.66, 7.51)	4.29 (3.97, 4.65)	7.07 (6.49, 7.65)	1.02 (0.97, 1.08)
6 months
Incident users	–	1.29 (1.21, 1.39)	–	1.31 (1.19, 1.46)	0.98 (0.86, 1.13)
Prevalent users	3.07 (2.89, 3.26)	5.31 (5.04, 5.61)	3.21 (2.93, 3.52)	5.29 (4.75, 5.89)	1.04 (0.98, 1.10)
9 months
Incident users	–	0.84 (0.73, 0.97)	–	0.84 (0.78, 0.90)	0.99 (0.84, 1.18)
Prevalent users	2.75 (2.58, 2.93)	4.19 (3.89, 4.51)	2.89 (2.67, 3.12)	4.27 (3.87, 4.72)	1.02 (0.95, 1.09)
< 6 doses per month	1.73 (1.63, 1.83)	2.97 (2.78, 3.17)	1.81 (1.70, 1.93)	2.95 (2.71, 3.20)	1.04 (0.95, 1.13)
≥ 6 and <15 doses per month	9.1 (8.8, 9.5)	9.9 (9.3, 10.5)	9.3 (9.0, 9.6)	10.8 (10.4, 11.2)	0.93 (0.87, 1.00)^2
≥ 15 doses per month	26.4 (22.1, 31.4)	25.4 (20.9, 31.0)	27.4 (23.0, 32.7)	26.0 (22.4, 30.1)	1.01 (0.85, 1.20)

– Not available for incident users. ¹Ratio based on regression analysis with log doses per month as dependent variable and, for the prevalent users, adjusted for baseline consumption. ²Significant p < 0.05.