Table 5 Summary of findings for outreach interventions on outcomes assessed
Outcome assessed | Effect | Number of participants (studies) | Certainty in the evidencea |
|---|---|---|---|
Impact on practice (prescription and other practice outcomes) | Most studies showed beneficial changes in practiceb | The individually randomised study had 991 participants [33]. The cluster-randomised trials had 234 clusters in total [35,36,37]. Two studies were very large observational studies collecting data from thousands of pharmacies [34, 38] (6 studies) | Moderate certaintyc ⊕ ⊕ ⊕ ◯ |
Impact on policy | No benefit from outreach interventions on policy and some suggestion of detriment (which is likely explained by residual confounding) | One cRCT with 180 clusters [35] (1 study) | Moderate certaintyd ⊕ ⊕ ⊕ ◯ |
Impact on health outcomes | Both studies reported small benefits in most health outcomes measured (with one outcome showing a small detriment) | One cRCT with 30 clusters (6274 patients) [37] and the other with 180 clusters (355 patients) [35] (2 studies) | High certainty ⊕ ⊕ ⊕ ⊕  |
Outcomes | The only study looking at this reported consistent benefit | One observational study with data from 2640 respondents [39] (1 study) | Very low certaintye O OOO |
Out-takes | The only study looking at this reported consistent benefit | One observational study with data from 2640 respondents [39] (1 study) | Very low certaintye O OOO |