Evaluation of a hospital pharmacy-based pharmaceutical care services for asthma patients

OBJECTIVES To implement and assess hospital-based pharmaceutical care services for patients with asthma. METHODS A prospective, randomized, controlled study was conducted in Shaab teaching hospital, Khartoum, Sudan. Patients were allocated randomly either in the intervention group (60) or control group (40) patients. The drug therapy of asthma for the patients in the intervention group was reviewed by a trained pharmacist, and interventions were suggested to the attending physicians for the identified problems. Intervention patients received comprehensive medication counselling and asthma education every 2 weeks, while the control group received the routine medical consultation and dispensing services. The outcome measures were recorded using structured forms at baseline and monitored during a follow-up of every two weeks for 6 months in both groups. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 13, level of significance was p<0.05. RESULTS At the end of the study period the mean reduction in frequency of acute attacks (1.91; SD=0.18 vs. 1.0; SD=0.14; p=0.03), nocturnal asthma symptoms (3.5; SD=0.3 vs. 1.1; SD=0.2; p=0.02) and frequency of using inhaled β2 agonists per week (19.9; SD= 2.1 vs. 3.3; SD=0.3; p=0.01) were significantly greater in the intervention group compared to control. A significant mean reduction (p=0.002) in the days of sickness/week was in the intervention group, while in control group there was an increase in mean days of sickness/week. The intervention group showed a significant greater improvement in the score for assessing the inhalation technique (p<0.001), patient's knowledge about asthma (p<0.001), and its drug-therapy (p=0.01) compared with control. CONCLUSION The present findings suggest that pharmacist's intervention can have positive impact on asthma-related outcomes in patients.