Impact of Pharmaceutical Care Interventions on the Quality of Life of Group of Hypertensive Patients

Abstract

Studies have shown that pharmaceutical care interventions have the potential of reducing hospital stay and drug therapy problems; it can also improve patients' quality of life. The primary objectives of this study was to show how pharmaceutical care interventions could resolve actual drug therapy problems and prevent potential drug therapy problems; also, to assess the change in the quality of life of hypertensive patients after such interventions. An uncontrolled prospective study was done. Hypertensive patients were recruited at the Medical Out-patients department (MOD) of Central Hospital Warri. Initially 104 patients were recruited, however, a total of 65 eligible patients were eventually used to asses for quality of life. Data were obtained using data collection forms; blood pressure was monitored using a sphygmomanometer, and patients were scheduled for follow up periodically for 6 months. Clinical outcomes and humanistic outcomes were assessed using the SF12 health survey form, and subsequently scored. DTPs were identified, case by case. All identified DTPs were reported in the patients’ pharmaceutical care data collection forms. Relevant descriptive and inferential statistics on data collected were performed. 65 patients were eventually followed up, 21.5% of them were males while 78.5% were females, with 72.3% of them aged 51years and above. Most of them (61.5%) had a family history of high blood pressure; 40% of them were diagnosed to have hypertension and diabetes; only 18.5% of them obtained their prescription re-fill from the hospital pharmacy. At the end of the study, a significant difference in the systolic blood pressure of the patients was discovered and there was a statistically significant association between DTP resolved/prevented and the pharmaceutical care intervention (p<0.001). The correlation between DTPs resolved/ prevented was significant in two domains of quality of life measure – the mental component summary (MCS), and the bodily pain domain. Pharmaceutical care provided to hypertensive patients in a secondary health facility in Warri, Nigeria, resolved some of the drug therapy problems identified and improved patients’ quality of life.