Effectiveness of medication review in improving medication knowledge and adherence in primary care patients

Abstract

Introduction: Medication review by pharmacists can be an important educational intervention to improve adherence rates as it can potentially address many of its barriers. Medication review may also directly improve the patient's knowledge and understanding of his or her drug regimen. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of medication review as an intervention to improve a patient's knowledge and adherence to their chronic medications. Methods: Two hundred and forty patients from four polyclinics, who were referred by their prescribers for pharmacist-conducted medication review, were recruited for this prospective study. The effectiveness of medication review in improving their knowledge of and adherence to chronic medications was evaluated using a two-part questionnaire, which was applied before intervention and upon follow-up. The data collated was then analysed using Student's paired t-test, Chi-square and Pearson's correlation test. Results: Of the 195 patients who completed follow-up, 93.8% demonstrated medication knowledge deficits. Medication review conducted by the polyclinic pharmacists had improved the patients' overall understanding of their medications' dosage, frequency, indication, storage and administration method (p<0.01). Seventy point three percent of study patients had issues with medication adherence. Of these, half reported an improvement after medication review. There was significant correlation between the patients' knowledge and adherence scores (p<0.001). Conclusion: Medication review was found to be an effective intervention for improving patient's medication knowledge and reported adherence to chronic medications in this preliminary study. Further study demonstrating the effectiveness of medication review in cultivating knowledge retention and sustained adherence in the longer term is warranted.