RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 A randomised controlled trial of the effect of educational outreach by community pharmacists on prescribing in UK general practice. JF British Journal of General Practice JO Br J Gen Pract FD British Journal of General Practice SP 290 OP 295 VO 52 IS 477 A1 Nick Freemantle A1 Irwin Nazareth A1 Martin Eccles A1 John Wood A1 Andrew Haines A1 Evidence-based OutReach trialists YR 2002 UL http://bjgp.org/content/52/477/290.abstract AB BACKGROUND: Educational outreach visits are commonly used to promote changes in prescribing in family practice. However, the effectiveness of outreach visits has not been evaluated across a range of settings. AIM: To estimate the effectiveness of educational outreach visits on United Kingdom (UK) general practice prescribing and to examine the extent to which practice characteristics influenced outcome. DESIGN OF STUDY: Randomised controlled trial. SETTING: General practices in 12 health authorities in England. METHOD: Educational outreach visits were made to practices that received two of four guidelines. Each practice provided data on treatment of patients for all four guidelines for both pre and post-intervention periods. The primary outcome is average effect across all four guidelines. Secondary analyses examined the predictive effect of practice and guideline characteristics. RESULTS: Seventy per cent of practices approached agreed to take part in the intervention. Overall, educational outreach was associated with a significant improvement in prescribing practice (odds ratio [OR] = 1.24 [95% CI = 1.07 to 1.42]), a 5.2% (95% CI = 1.7% to 8.7%) increase in the number of patients treated within the guideline recommendations. Smaller practices (two or fewer full-time equivalent practitioners) responded much more favourably to educational outreach than larger practices. Smaller practices improved their performance in line with the guidelines by 13.5% (95% CI = 6% to 20.9%) attributable to outreach, while larger practices improved by only 1.4% (95% CI = -2.4% to 5.3%, P-value for interaction <0.001). CONCLUSION: In large practices, educational outreach alone is unlikely to achieve worthwhile change. There is good evidence to support the use of educational outreach visits in small practices.