Clinical Pharmacist-Provided Services In Iron-Overloaded Beta-Thalassaemia Major Children: A New Insight Into Patient Care

Abstract

Iron-overloaded β-thalassaemia major (BTM) children have high risk of delayed sexual/physical maturation, liver/heart diseases and reduced life expectancy. The lifelong need to use iron chelators, their unpleasant administration, side effects and lack of awareness regarding iron overload risks all hamper BTM patient compliance to iron chelators. This study evaluated the impact of clinical pharmacist-provided services on the outcome of iron-overloaded BTM children. Forty-eight BTM children were randomly assigned to either control group, who received standard medical care, or intervention group, who received standard medical care plus clinical pharmacist-provided services. Services included detection of drug-related problems (DRPs) and their management, patient education regarding disease nature and iron chelators, as well as providing patient-tailored medication charts. After six months of study implementation, there was a highly significant difference between the control and intervention groups in serum ferritin (SF) (mean: 3871 versus 2362, μg/l, p = 0.0042), patient healthcare satisfaction (median: 24.47 versus 90.29, p < 0.0001) and quality of life (QoL) (median: 49.84 versus 63.51, p = 0.0049). The intervention group showed a decline from baseline to the end of study in DRPs (64–4), the number of non-compliant patients (24–3) and mean SF levels (3949–2362 μg/l, p < 0.0001). Clinical pharmacist-provided services can positively impact the outcome of BTM children.