Mortality and Antipsychotic Drug Use in Elderly Patients With Parkinson Disease in Nursing Homes

Nursing Home Residents' Functional Trajectories and Mortality After a Transfer to the Emergency Department

OBJECTIVE

To describe nursing home residents' (NHRs) functional trajectories and mortality after a transfer to the emergency department (ED).

DESIGN

Case-control observational multicenter study.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

In total, 1037 NHRs presenting to 17 EDs in France over 4 nonconsecutive weeks in 2016.

METHODS

Finite mixture models were fitted to longitudinal data on activities of daily living (ADL) scores before transfer (time 1), during hospitalization (time 2), and within 1 week after discharge (time 3) to identify groups of NHRs following similar functional evolution. Factors associated with mortality were investigated by Cox regressions.

RESULTS

Trajectory modeling identified 4 distinct trajectories of ADL. The first showed a high and stable (across time 1, time 2, and time 3) functional capacity around 5.2/6 ADL points, with breathlessness as the main condition leading to transfer. The second displayed an initial 37.8% decrease in baseline ADL performance (between time 1 and time 2), followed by a 12.5% recovery of baseline ADL performance (time 2‒time 3), with fractures as the main condition. The third displayed a similar initial decrease, followed by a 6.7% recovery. The fourth displayed an initial 70.1% decrease, followed by an 8.5% recover, with more complex geriatric polypathology situations. Functional decline was more likely after being transferred for a cerebrovascular condition or for a fracture, after being discharged from ED to a surgery department, and with a heavier burden of distressing symptoms during transfer. Mortality after ED transfer was more likely in older NHRs, those in a more severe condition, those who were hospitalized more frequently in the past month, and those transferred for cerebrovascular conditions or breathlessness.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Identified trajectories and factors associated with functional decline and mortality should help clinicians decide whether to transfer NHRs to ED. NHRs with high functional ability seem to benefit from ED transfers whereas on-site alternatives should be sought for those with poor functional ability.

A Canadian Cohort Study to Evaluate the Outcomes Associated with a Multicenter Initiative to Reduce Antipsychotic Use in Long-Term Care Homes

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate the impact of a multicenter intervention to reduce potentially inappropriate antipsychotic use in Canadian nursing homes at the individual and facility levels.

DESIGN

Longitudinal, population-based cohort study to evaluate the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement's Spreading Healthcare Innovations Initiative to reduce potentially inappropriate antipsychotic use in 6 provinces/territories.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

Adults in nursing homes in 6 provinces/territories in Canada between 2014 and 2016. The sample involved 4927 residents in 45 intervention homes and 122,570 residents in 1193 control homes in the first quarter of the study.

MEASURES

Assessment data based on the Resident Assessment Instrument 2.0 were used in both settings to track antipsychotic use and to obtain risk-adjusters for a quality indicator on potentially inappropriate use.

INTERVENTION

Quality improvement teams in participating organizations were provided with education, training, and support to implement localized strategies intended to reduce antipsychotic medication use in residents without diagnosis of psychosis.

RESULTS

At the resident level, we found that the odds of remaining on potentially inappropriate antipsychotics were 0.75 in intervention compared with control homes after adjusting for age, sex, aggressive behavior, and cognition. These findings were evident within the pooled Canadian data as well as within provinces. At the facility level, the intervention homes had greater improvements in risk-adjusted quality indicator performance than the control homes, and this was true for the worst, median, and best-performing homes at baseline. There was no major change in the quality indicator for worsening of behavior symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS

The Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement intervention was associated with a reduction in potentially inappropriate antipsychotic use at both the individual and facility levels of analysis. This improvement in performance was independent of secular trends toward reduced antipsychotic use in participating provinces. This suggests that substantial improvements in medication use may be achieved through targeted, collaborative quality improvement initiatives in long-term care.

Effect of an Educational and Organizational Intervention on Pain in Nursing Home Residents: A Nonrandomized Controlled Trial

OBJECTIVES

To determine whether an intervention based on education and professional support to nursing home (NH) staff would decrease the number of residents with a pain complaint, and to determine whether the intervention would improve pain management.

DESIGN

Nonrandomized controlled trial. NHs were nonrandomly allocated either to a strong intervention group consisting in audit, feedback, and collaborative work on quality indicators with a hospital geriatrician, or to a light intervention group (LIG) consisting in audit and feedback only.

SETTING

One hundred fifty-nine NHs located in France.

PARTICIPANTS

A subgroup of 3722 residents.

MEASURES

Information on pain complaint and pain-related covariates at the resident-related and at the NH level were recorded by NH staff at baseline and 18 months later. These covariates were included in a mixed-effects logistic regression on resident's pain complaint. Pain management was compared between intervention groups by chi-square tests.

RESULTS

A greater reduction of residents with a pain complaint after the strong intervention (odds ratio 0.69, 95% confidence interval 0.53, 0.90) and a better pain management (47.6% gold standard, vs 30.6% in the LIG, P < .001) than controls.

CONCLUSION/IMPLICATIONS

Combining educational and organizational measures, evaluating pain as a patient-reported outcome and as a process endpoint, and implementing a broad-spectrum intervention were original approaches to improve quality of care in NHs. Our results support nonspecific, collaborative, educational, and organizational interventions in NHs to decrease residents' pain complaint and improve pain management.

Methods in pharmacoepidemiology

Pharmacoepidemiology is the study of interactions between drugs and human populations, investigating, in real conditions of life, benefits, risks and use of drugs. Pharmacoepidemiology applies to drugs and their pharmacological evaluations, the different methods also used in epidemiology to assess in real conditions of life, benefits, risks and use of drugs. Pharmacoepidemiologic studies are ad-hoc studies or studies on databases. Specific methods exist to measure drug exposure, as well as indicators of compliance and misuse of drugs. Various designs for descriptive and explanatory studies exist, in a context in which a growing proportion of studies are carried out using medico-administrative data. The limits traditionally affecting the study designs are modified in this context, almost any design selected for the conduct of a study from these databases then deriving from a cohort in whom the information has been recorded prospectively and exhaustively.

Second-generation antipsychotic drugs and short-term mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of placebo-controlled randomised controlled trials

BACKGROUND

Acutely occurring, life-threatening side-effects of antipsychotic drugs might contribute to the reduced life expectancy observed in patients with severe mental disorders. We aimed to assess this hypothesis by doing a systematic review and meta-analysis of deaths occurring in placebo-controlled trials of antipsychotic drugs.

METHODS

For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we included randomised controlled trials comparing second-generation antipsychotics with placebo across several diagnostic categories. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL, BIOSIS, PsycINFO, PubMed, ClinicalTrials.gov, and WHO ICTRP from inception (the last search was done on Jan 21, 2017), and contacted pharmaceutical companies and regulatory authorities for further eligible trials. We examined mortality from any cause (the primary outcome) and mortality from natural causes, suicide, and other non-natural causes. We synthesised the results with odds ratios (ORs) in a common-effects meta-analysis. We investigated the effects of age, diagnostic category, sex, study duration, antipsychotic drug used, drug dose, and polypharmacy in subgroup and meta-regression analyses. This study is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016033930.

FINDINGS

We identified 596 randomised controlled trials published between 1978 and 2017, comprising 108 747 participants. 352 studies (comprising 84 988 participants) with mortality data available constituted the main dataset for our meta-analysis. 207 (0·4%) deaths were reported in 53 804 patients on an antipsychotic drug and 99 (0·3%) deaths in 31 184 patients on placebo. 300 (85%) of 352 trials were 13 weeks (3 months) or shorter in duration (median 6 weeks; IQR 4-10). We found no evidence of a difference between antipsychotic drugs and placebo in mortality by any cause (OR 1·19; 95% CI 0·93-1·53), from natural causes (1·29; 0·85-1·94), from suicide (1·15; 0·47-2·81), and from other non-natural causes (1·55; 0·66-3·63). Most subgroup and meta-regression analyses did not indicate any important effect moderators. The exceptions were increased mortality in patients with dementia (OR 1·56; 95% CI 1·10-2·21), in elderly patients (1·38; 1·01-1·89), in aripiprazole-treated patients (2·20; 1·00-4·86), and in studies with a higher proportion of women (regression coefficient 0·025; 95% credible interval 0·010-0·040). However, the effects in elderly patients, aripiprazole-treated patients, and women were mainly based on the included dementia trials. For patients with schizophrenia there was no evidence of an increased mortality risk (OR 0·69; 95% CI 0·35-1·35).

INTERPRETATION

Overall, and for the main indication of schizophrenia, there is no evidence from randomised trials that antipsychotic drugs increase mortality. However, vulnerable populations (particularly patients with dementia) might be at increased risk. This meta-analysis could only address acute treatment effects leading to death in the short-term, and not long-term effects of antipsychotic drugs on mortality.

FUNDING

German Ministry of Education and Research.