OBJECTIVES: Previous research has highlighted suboptimal utilization of statin therapy among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). There was a gap in appropriate statin therapy prescribing to decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease among this population. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of academic detailing program on enhancing the overall appropriate statin therapy prescribing among patients with T2DM in the Malaysian primary care setting.

METHODS: A total of 816 medical records from four primary care clinics were investigated. The records were distributed as 412 from two sites subjected to study intervention and 404 from control study sites. In all study sites, there was a pre and post-intervention assessment of the percentage of appropriate statin therapy prescribing that complied with the clinical guidelines with no potential safety issues. The intervention was an academic detailing program offered to the general practitioners in two primary care clinics focusing on improving statin therapy prescribing. Post-intervention data collection was performed three months later. A comparison of the overall percentage of appropriate statin therapy prescribing before and after the intervention was performed in all study sites.

RESULTS: About 404 medical records were examined in the pre-intervention phase, and 412 were assessed after the intervention has been conducted. The assessment of the impact of academic detailing program in the intervention study sites has revealed an improvement in the appropriate statin prescribing from 63.2% (129/204) pre-intervention to 77.9% (162/208) post-intervention, p = 0.002. Moreover, the appropriate statin prescribing in the control study sites was increased from 71% (142/200) pre-intervention to 73.5% (150/204), p = 0.551. There was a statistically significant difference between the two proportions of appropriate statin therapy prescribing only in the intervention study sites.

CONCLUSIONS: The academic detailing program showed a positive impact on improving statin therapy prescribing for patients with T2DM in the Malaysian primary care setting.