Patient-mediated interventions to improve professional practice: A summary of a Cochrane systematic review

Objective

To assess the effectiveness of patient-mediated interventions on healthcare professionals' performance.

Methods

We conducted a systematic Cochrane review according to established guidelines. We searched predefined databases in 2016 and 2017. Two review authors independently assessed studies for inclusion, extracted data, assessed risk of bias, performed meta-analyses, and assessed the certainty of the evidence (GRADE).

Results

We included 25 randomised studies with a total of 12 268 patients. We found that patient-reported health information interventions and patient education interventions probably improve healthcare professionals' adherence to recommended clinical practice (moderate certainty evidence). We also found that patient information interventions may improve healthcare professionals' adherence to recommended clinical practice (low certainty evidence). Patient decision aids may make little or no difference to the number of healthcare professionals’ adhering to recommended clinical practice (low-certainty evidence).

Conclusion

Our findings strengthen the belief that patient-mediated interventions have the potential to improve professional practice, especially patient-reported health information interventions and patient education interventions.

Practice implications

Our findings show that patient-reported health information interventions and patient education interventions are relevant approaches to improve professional practice. Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that these types of patient-mediated interventions can contribute to improving the quality of healthcare services.