Impact of Pharmacists' Assistance in Care of Asthma Patients in A Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Objectives: Asthma is an alarming health problem throughout the world. There has been a sudden rise in the global prevalence, morbidity and mortality associated with asthma over the last 40 years. Thus the identification, awareness and management of this disease is crucial. Patient counselling is a method which increases medication adherence and decreases the relapse of exacerbations. This study aims to analyze the impact of pharmacist provided patient counselling in asthmatics. Methods: This is a hospital based experimental study in which 100 patients diagnosed with asthma who met the inclusion criteria were included in the study. They were randomly divided into control and interventional group. Patient counselling was provided to interventional group. WHOQOL‐BREF and Validated KAP (Knowledge, attitude, practice) questionnaires were administered to both the groups at baseline and after 2 months. The scores were compared to assess the impact of pharmacist's assistance in asthmatics. Results: 81 patients completed the study, 42 in the control group and 39 in the interventional group. It was found that females were predominantly affected by asthma when compared to males. Baseline characteristics of both the groups were similar. There was significant improvement in the domain 1(physical health) of WHOQOL‐BREF in the interventional group (67.2%) when compared to the control group (48.4%). The intervention also resulted in improved knowledge about asthma (by 47%), drug use practice (by 57%) and inhaler technique (by 62%). No significant changes for any of these variables were observed in the control group. Conclusions: Our study concluded that pharmacist provided patient counselling results in better patient outcome. Although the intervention seemed to beneficial, additional research would be needed to define the core issues for future implementation of the services in a hospital setting. Copyright © 2018