Patients’ demographic and baseline clinical characteristics
| Intervention group (n=59) | Control group (n=59) | p Value* | |||
| n (%) | mean (SD) | n (%) | mean (SD) | ||
| Age (years) | 80.0 (6.6) | 80.0 (6.9) | 0.082 | ||
| Patients admitted to hospital wards | 52 (88.1) | 53 (89.8) | 0.77 | ||
| Sex (female) | 28 (47.5) | 31 (52.5) | 0.58 | ||
| No. of medications taken regularly at home | 10.5 (3.5) | 10.0 (3.3) | 0.763 | ||
| No. of chronic health problems | 5.5 (2.4) | 5.3 (2.2) | 0.361 | ||
| Charlson index | 6.8 (1.6) | 6.7 (1.8) | 0.161 | ||
| Hypertension | 41 (69.5) | 40 (67.8) | 0.8 | ||
| Diabetes mellitus | 26 (44.1) | 26 (44.1) | 1 | ||
| Dyslipidaemia | 26 (44.1) | 15 (25.4) | 0.03† | ||
| Atrial fibrillation | 25 (42.4) | 20 (33.9) | 0.34 | ||
| Chronic renal failure | 14 (23.7) | 15 (25.4) | 0.8 | ||
| Ischaemic heart disease | 18 (30.5) | 10 (16.9) | 0.08 | ||
*p refers to results from chi-squared test or t-test
†Statistically significant differences (p<0.05).