A Multifaceted Intervention To Reduce Pediatric Acid-Suppressant Prescriptions for GER: What Have We Learned?

OBJECTIVE:Acid-suppressant prescriptions for children have increased over past decades, despite guideline recommendations to prescribe prudently. Acid-suppressants are often ineffective and may lead to side-effects. We aimed to reduce inappropriate acid-suppressant prescriptions for gastro-esophageal reflux (GER) in a tertiary care setting through active implementation of national guideline recommendations and to evaluate intervention effect. METHODS:Implementation consisted of two steps. First, all pediatric clinicians in an academic hospital received information on appropriate acid-suppressant prescribing, a link to an online national guideline application and summary card with important evidence-based recommendations – Wise Choices. Hereafter, clinicians prescribing acid-suppressants were contacted to provide feedback on indications and to assess their knowledge of the guideline and Wise Choices. The pharmacy database supplied prescription data before, during and after this intervention. RESULTS:During the study period prescriptions ranged from 115–201/month. Ten months post-intervention, a non-significant decrease of 4 prescriptions/month was measured (95% CI -49 to 41). 76/78 prescribers were successfully contacted63% was familiar with the guideline and 45% with Wise Choices. 30% of prescriptions was for GER symptoms. CONCLUSION:This multifaceted implementation strategy did not lead to a significant difference in acid-suppressant prescriptions by tertiary care clinicians of whom the majority was familiar with the GERD guideline.Future studies should clarify which implementation strategies are most effective in reducing inappropriate prescribing of acid-suppressants for children. Uniform registration of prescriptions and indications in a national database will enable monitoring of the intervention effect.