A Cochrane review «Medication review in hospitalised patients to reduce morbidity and mortality»1 «Bülow C, Clausen SS, Lundh A et al. Medication review in hospitalised patients to reduce morbidity and mortality. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2023;1(1):CD008986. »1 included 25 studies with a total of 15 076 subjects. Follow-up ranged from 1 to 20 months. Medication reviews in hospitalised adults may have little to no effect on mortality (RR 0.96, 95% CI 0.87 to 1.05; 18 trials, n=10 108; low-certainty evidence); likely reduce hospital readmissions (RR 0.93, 95% CI 0.89 to 0.98; 17 trials, n=9561; moderate-certainty evidence); may reduce emergency department contacts (RR 0.84, 95% CI 0.68 to 1.03; 8 trials, n=3527; low-certainty evidence) and have very uncertain effects on health-related quality of life (SMD 0.10, 95% CI -0.10 to 0.30; 4 trials, n=392; very low-certainty evidence).
Comment: The quality of the evidence is downgraded by indirectness (short follow-up time).