Concernment of Drug Consultation on Improvement in Patient's Knowledge by Pharmacist.

Abstract

The purpose of the report is to assess the effectiveness of drug consultations by pharmacists in accordance with a prospective controlled study for asthma patents during a four month period. This prospective study was based on a questionnaire and interview for asthma patients to investigate the disease recognition. The subjects consisted of 43 male and female asthma patients who were treated with theophylline and other drugs between September 1997 and December 1997. In particular, the subjects receiving drug consultations consisted of 17 patients, who were all outpatients with asthma disease. The severity and incidence of asthma symptoms and the knowledge of prescribed drugs for patients were obtained by the questionnaires. In addition, we directly interviewed 32 male and female patients, who replied to the questionnaire, to evaluate his/her understanding of drug therapy with asthma. We then determined the values. The values were expressed as the means ± S.D. of nobservations for each score. In this study, the average age of the subjects was 56.5 years. The drugs used for the asthma patients were inhaled steroids, theophylline, expectants, inhaled bronchodilators and anti-allergic agents (such as thromboxane A2 synthesis inhibitors, leukotriene receptor antagonists). The number of correct answers for inhaled anti-inflammatory agents and inhaled bronchodilator agents were significantly better than those of the non-consultation patients during our observation period. In addition, in the stepwise approach for asthma patients treatment, the peak flow monitoring usage and recognition both improved by pharmacist's drug consultations with asthma patient. In this study, we indicated that the drug consultations by pharmacists exercises have a favorable effect on the management of asthma patients.