Results
26 of 100 patients in the EES-support and 28 of 100 in the control group
had at least one documented actual DRP. Some demographic characteristics
for these patients are presented in table 1.
Table 1 insert here
Table 2 gives comparisons between groups regarding the number of
identified actual DRPs. For the comparison of the number of patients
where the pharmacist found at least 1 DRP, for which the power
calculation was based, there was a non-significant trend that the
intervention failed, and the pharmacist found less DRPs using
EES-support. For the other comparisons the pharmacist identified more
DRPs using the EES-support. For the total (at least 1, 2 and 3-5 DRPs)
the comparisons were statistically significant.
Table 2 insert here
Most DRPs were identified among elderly patients (>70
years), 85 and 79% in the EES-support- and control group, respectively.
Table 3 shows comparisons of pharmacists’ initiatives towards patients
and prescribers between the groups regarding the total number of
identified DRPs, documented suggestions, presented suggestions to the
patient and/or prescriber, and resolved DRPs. For the EES-support group,
a total of 47/52 of identified actual DRP action proposals have been
documented (90%), 46/52 (88%) of these DRPs have been presented and
43/52 (82%) have been resolved. For the control group, the
corresponding values are 35/39 (90%), 31/39 (79%), and 29/39 (74%).
There was a significant difference favoring EES-support that it helped
pharmacists to present suggestions to physicians and consequently to
resolve DRPs. For patient initiatives there was a trend but no
significant differences. Most suggestions and resolved problems were
however directed towards patients.
Table 3 insert here
In the EES-support group drug-drug interactions were the most common DRP
type (33%) (Table 4). In the control group it was drug duplications
(38%).
Table 4 insert here
Table 5 describes initiatives performed (presented suggestions) toward
the patient or the prescriber. In the EES-support group, initiatives
were directed almost equally between the prescriber and the patient. In
the control group most initiatives were directed toward the patients.
Table 5 insert here