Abstract
The purpose of this research was to compare the effects of medication related problems by community hospital pharmacists in hypertensive patients before and after the patients attending physicians by control-group time series design. The patients who attended pharmacist before physicians will be call "group 1" and the patients who attended physician before pharmacists will be call "group 2". The study was carried out at 7 community hospital in Songkla Province; Satingpra Hospital, Krasasin Hospital, Rattapoom Hospital, Jana Hospital, Tepa Hospital, Kuanniang Hospital and Padangbesar Hospital. The number of patients who could be followed-up for 3 visits were 123 in control group, 108 in group 1 and 113 in group 2. The results showed that medication related problems be found in 74.8, 63.9 and 69.0 in control group, group 1 and group 2 respectively. The medication related problems were found as 1 – 7 problems per patient and the number of medication related problems in experimental groups were less than in control group significantly (p = 0.004) but there was no different between the both experimental groups. Additionally, number of medication related problems and diastolic blood pressure were reduced in both experimental groups (p <0.05) when the patients attended pharmacist at 2nd and 3rd visits but it was not different between group 1 and group 2. Patients satisfied to pharmacy practice at high level (median = 4 points from 5 point full scale) but no difference was found between group 1 and group 2. Physicians and nurses also satisfied to pharmacy practice at high level and no difference was found between the pattern which patients attend pharmacists before and after physicians. However, pharmacists spend more time in group 2 patients (median = 10 minutes) than group 1 patients (median = 10 minutes), especially in the patient’s first visit but it was not different in the later visits (median = 5 minutes in both groups) We can concluded that medication related problem resolving by pharmacists could reduce medication related problems in hypertensive patients but it was not different between the two experiment groups. Patients, physicians and nurses satisfied to pharmacist practice but there was no different between the two experimental groups. The community hospital pharmacists can choose the suitable patterns of medication related problem resolving as this study for doing the pharmaceutical care in their hospital.
