Statin prescribing practice

Last month, the research round-up provided you with an overview of articles looking at the emerging concept of green and sustainable prescribing. This month, we look at statin prescribing practice. The first article looks at the effects of nudges to improve statin prescribing, the second looks at lack of statin therapy after ischaemic stroke and finally an article looking at statins as primary prevention in the over 80 years age group.

This article in the journal JAMA Cardiology presents the findings of a cluster randomised clinical trial involving 4131 patients from 28 primary care practices and 158 clinicians between October 2019 and April 2021. There was a data collection of 12 months prior to the intervention commencement and then 6 months collection of intervention data.

The researchers sought to evaluate whether the use of nudges increased the commencement of statin prescriptions during primary care consultations. These nudges took the form of active choice prompts in electronic systems for the clinicians during the consultation and monthly feedback to them comparing their prescribing patterns with that of their peers. The patient nudges took the form of interactive text messages sent to the patients phone prior to their booked appointments.