Impact of Clinical Pharmacist-Led Interventions on Short Term Quality of Life Among Iraqi Patients with Multiple Sclerosis Taking Disease-Modifying Therapy

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis has a substantial impact on a patient's quality of life. Pharmacists have a significant effect on the treatment of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) and may contribute to enhancing their quality of life (QoL). This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of pharmacist-led intervention (PI) on the quality of life (QoL) of patients with multiple sclerosis taking disease-modifying therapies (DMTs). This was a pre-post-intervention study on patients with Relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis and receiving DMTs who attended a neurological consultant clinic in the medical city of Baghdad. Each patient received two educational sessions: the first at baseline after filling the face validation Arabic version of Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life (MSQOL) -29 items at baseline and the second after a month. Each session lasted approximately 30-45 minutes, and the patients received educational counselling. A formal Arabic pamphlet was prepared for each patient. Then, after two months, the researcher asked the patient to refill the same questionnaires. Eighty patients with RRMS were enrolled in the study, and sixty-five of these patients ultimately completed the study. The mean age of the participants is 30.64 ±8.54. The clinical pharmacist's intervention significantly improved the physical health composite PHC and mental health composite MHC. Only physical function in PHC and changes in health were non-significantly affected by pharmacist intervention. The changes in scores before and after intervention were non-significant differences in all demographic data groups. Finally, the study concluded that a clinical pharmacist-led educational intervention may enhance the quality of life of multiple sclerosis patients.