| Experimental Group |
Pharmaceutical Care Intervention |
Daily, weekly, and monthly where applicable. |
Six (6) months |
Patients randomized to the intervention group received pharmaceutical care from the research pharmacist using a stepwise approach as follows:
Step 1: Establishing a professional/ therapeutic relationship with the patients and other healthcare providers. This was done by using principles of good communication skills and showing empathy to patients with regular phone calls and home visitations where applicable.
Step 2: Collecting patient-specific subjective and objective data, by direct patient interview, review of the patient’s medical records, visual drug inspections, and point-of-care testing tools.
Step 3: Evaluating the data and identifying health and Drug Therapy Problems, using critical thinking skills and pharmacotherapy skills to review the patient’s subjective and objective data collected in an integrated manner to detect the 7 major classes of drug therapy problems such as unnecessary drug therapy, wrong drug, dosage too low, dosage too high, adverse drug reaction, inappropriate adherence, and needs additional drug therapy, as well as, their 34 subclasses whether as potential or actual drug therapy problems.
Step 4: Developing and Implementing a pharmaceutical care plan (pharmacist's interventions). Here, problem-solving skills, in addition to, communication, critical thinking, and pharmacotherapeutic skills were employed to resolve all health and DTPs identified at the patient’s and/ or healthcare provider’s level. The actual pharmaceutical care plans implemented include pharmacotherapeutic goal setting, pharmacotherapeutic regimen modifications, Patient Medication and Education Counselling, Therapeutic Lifestyle Counselling, drug dispensing, generic/ therapeutic drug substitution, and drug dispensing referrals.
Step 5: Evaluating and monitoring the interventions and follow-up.
Step 6: Documentation of pharmaceutical care activities, done manually on a specially designed documentation sheet stored in a pharmaceutical care folder opened for each patient. |
12 |
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