Pharmaceutical care as a strategy to improve the safety and effectiveness of patients? pharmacotherapy at a pharmacy school: a practical proposal

Chronopharmacology in Therapeutic Drug Monitoring-Dependencies between the Rhythmics of Pharmacokinetic Processes and Drug Concentration in Blood

The objective of the optimization of pharmacotherapy compliant with the basic rules of clinical pharmacology is its maximum individualization, ensuring paramount effectiveness and security of the patient's therapy. Thus, multiple factors that are decisive in terms of uniqueness of treatment of the given patient must be taken into consideration, including, but not limited to, the patient's age, sex, concomitant diseases, special physiological conditions (e.g., pregnancy, lactation, extreme age groups), polypharmacotherapy and polypragmasia (particularly related to increased risk of drug interactions), and patient's phenotypic response to the administered drug with possible genotyping. Conducting therapy while monitoring the concentration of certain drugs in blood (Therapeutic Drug Monitoring; TDM procedure) is also one of the factors enabling treatment individualization. Furthermore, another material, and yet still a marginalized pharmacotherapeutic factor, is chronopharmacology, which indirectly determines the values of drug concentrations evaluated in the TDM procedure. This paper is a brief overview of chronopharmacology, especially chronopharmacokinetics, and its connection with the clinical interpretation of the meaning of the drug concentrations determined in the TDM procedure.

Content and impact of pharmacy services for patients with Parkinson's disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Medicines optimisation is important for the management of Parkinson's disease (PD). As many patients with PD have other long-term conditions, treatment is complex and risk of adverse events for these patients is high.

OBJECTIVE

To explore the role of pharmacists and impact of pharmacy interventions for PD patients.

METHODS

We comprehensively searched PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library and Chinese databases Sinomed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure to identify studies reporting pharmacist interventions and pharmacy services for PD patients using a predefined search strategy. The search period was from inception to March 2019. We also manually searched the reference list of included studies and ClinicalTrials.gov. We conducted meta-analyses to synthesize the evidence quantitatively.

RESULTS

A total of 1607 studies were identified by applying the search criteria. After screening, 19 cross-sectional and case-controlled studies with 1458 PD patients from 9 countries were included. Pharmacist interventions for PD patients most commonly related to adverse drug reactions (ADRs) (13 studies), adherence assessment (12 studies), medication review (12 studies), identification of drug interactions (11 studies), monitoring response to medication therapy (11 studies), identification of inappropriate medication (11 studies), and patient education (10 studies). Most pharmacy services were provided in outpatient settings (13 studies). Reported impact measures included adherence (8 studies), quality of life (7 studies), and identification of drug-related problems (6 studies) such as ADRs (393 times out of 1760 times, 22.33%, 6 studies), inappropriate drug choice (349 times, 19.83%, 6 studies), inappropriate dosage (335 times, 19.03%, 6 studies), inappropriate drug use (257 times, 14.60%, 3 studies) and drug-drug interactions (146 times, 8.3%, 4 studies). Pooled results from 3 studies indicated no statistically significant impact of pharmacy services on all subscales of PD Questionnaire-39.

CONCLUSION

ADRs were the most widely reported drug-related problems for PD patients; pharmacy services may have a role to play in medication adherence but were not found to impact on quality of life.

Medication Therapy Management Service for Patients with Parkinson's Disease: A Before-and-After Study

Background

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by motor manifestations, autonomic and neurological disorders and sensorial symptoms. Medication therapy management (MTM) consists of a service undertaken by pharmacists to optimize pharmacological therapy results. This way, the pharmacist monitors the treatment prescribed by the doctor and formulates a healthcare plan to guarantee the treatment’s effectiveness, safety and convenience, thereby improving the patient’s quality of life (QoL).

Objective

To analyze the effect of MTM upon medicine-related problems, motor symptoms, autonomic disorders and QoL of patients with Parkinson’s disease, and describe the pharmaceutical interventions.

Methods

Quasi-experimental uncontrolled before-and-after study carried out between September 2012 and March 2013 in a community pharmacy. Pharmacotherapy data were collected from medical prescriptions, patient diaries, medical charts and all the medicines (over-the-counter and prescription) brought by the patients to the appointment with the pharmacist. The medicine-related problems were classified as indication, effectiveness, safety and adherence. Adherence was measured through clinical interviews and the Morisky questionnaire. PD symptoms were assessed according to the patients’ and/or caregivers’ perceptions about the On/Off state of the motor symptoms and relief of the nonmotor symptoms. QoL was assessed using the PDQ-39 scores. The interventions were targeted to patients/caregivers and/or doctors, with pharmacological and non-pharmacological measures.

Results

Seventy patients were followed up, showing a decrease in medicine-related problems (1.67 ± 1.34 to 0.8 ± 0.9 (p < 0.001), positive impact on adherence (from 37 to 10 non-adherent patients, p < 0.001), QoL improvement related to emotional wellbeing (p = 0.012) and autonomic disorder. Most interventions were performed directly with the patients (73.8%), including non-pharmacological guidance (28.5%), pharmacological guidance (24.3%) and rescheduling (13.6%).

Conclusions

To carry out MTM with PD patients, the pharmacist’s expertise needs to transcend the technical knowledge about the PD pharmacological treatment. The study showed a positive effect with a decrease in the medicine-related problems after the interventions, especially improving adherence and patients’ QoL.

Pharmacotherapy review: a proposal to improve medication adherence among hypertensive patients

Abstract Pharmacotherapy review is a structured assessment of medicines, which aims to obtain a partnership with patients to achieve drug treatment goals and agreement about drug dosage, as well as when and how the drugs should be administered. The objective was to analyze the influence of pharmacotherapy review, by scheduling drug administration to improve medication adherence among antihypertensive patients. This study was an uncontrolled intervention developed in three distinct stages. The first stage included data collection on the profile of patients and their medications, and a preliminary assessment of medication adherence. In the second stage, the review report was delivered to patients. In the third stage, the results of blood pressure and medication adherence were assessed. The influence of the revision was measured through statistical tests (p<0.05). The study included 40 patients with a mean age of 58.0 (SD:11.3) years; 72.5% were women. Thirty-three (82.5 %) patients required some intervention, after when there was a significant increase in the number of daily doses (p=0.039) and drug intakes (p=0.025). There was a significant increase in the adherence rate, according to both the Morisky-Green test (p<0.001) and self-reported assessment (p=0.004). There was also an improvement in the levels of systolic (p<0.001) and diastolic (p=0.002) blood pressure and in the number of patients with controlled hypertension (p=0.006). The pharmaceutical service enhanced medication adherence and control of systemic blood pressure; however, it increased the complexity of treatment.