• Lynn O'Toole, Deidre Connolly, Fiona Boland, and Susan M Smith.
• Discipline of Occupational Therapy, School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin, St James's Hospital, Dublin.
• Br J Gen Pract. 2021 Apr 1; 71 (705): e303-e311.

BackgroundEffective primary care interventions for multimorbidity are needed.AimTo evaluate the effectiveness of a group-based, 6-week, occupational therapy-led self-management support programme (OPTIMAL) for patients with multimorbidity.Design And SettingA pragmatic parallel randomised controlled trial across eight primary care teams in Eastern Ireland with 149 patients with multimorbidity, from November 2015 to December 2018. Intervention was OPTIMAL with a usual care comparison.MethodPrimary outcomes were health-related quality of life (EQ-5D-3L) and frequency of activity participation (Frenchay Activities Index [FAI]). Secondary outcomes included independence in activities of daily living, occupational performance and satisfaction, anxiety and depression, self-efficacy, and healthcare utilisation. Complete case linear regression analyses were conducted. Age (<65/≥65 years) and the number of chronic conditions (<4/≥4) were explored further.ResultsA total of 124 (83.2%) and 121 (81.2%) participants had complete data at immediate and 6-month post-intervention follow-up, respectively. Intervention participants had significant improvement in EQ-VAS (visual analogue scale) at immediate follow-up (adjusted mean difference [aMD] = 7.86; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.92 to 14.80) but no difference in index score (aMD = 0.04; 95% CI = -0.06 to 0.13) or FAI (aMD = 1.22; 95% CI = -0.84 to 3.29). At 6-month follow-up there were no differences in primary outcomes and mixed results for secondary outcomes. Pre-planned subgroup analyses suggested participants aged <65 years were more likely to benefit.ConclusionOPTIMAL was found to be ineffective in improving health-related quality of life or activity participation at 6-month follow-up. Existing multimorbidity interventions tend to focus on older adults; preplanned subgroup analyses results in the present study suggest that future research should target younger adults (<65 years) with multimorbidity.© The Authors.

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