Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of pharmacist involvement, by means of Pharmacotherapy Follow-Up (PFU) in the improvement of medication adherence and therapeutic outcomes. DESIGN: An experimental, controlled, and randomised clinical study comparing a PFU program with the routine process in Spanish community pharmacies improved with health education during 8 months. SETTING: Nine Spanish community pharmacies. PARTICIPANTS: Patients between 25 and 74 years with a moderate-high cardiovascular risk (CVR), who arrived with a prescription, in their name, for drugs for at least one CVR factor. INTERVENTIONS: The patients were randomly assigned to the intervention group (IG), and received PFU and health education, or the control group (CG), who received health education only. MAIN MEASUREMENTS: Adherence to treatment, and blood pressure (BP) and total cholesterol (TC) levels at the beginning and end of the study. RESULTS: Of the 87 patients enrolled, 85 finished the study: 41 from the CG and 44 from the IG. Both groups increased adherence at the end of the [CG: 26.9%; 95% CI: 12.7- 41; IG: 27.3%; 95% CI: 13.6 - 41]. Although the IG showed better results in the variation of BP and TC levels, the differences compared to the CG were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: PFU and health education improves adherence to treatment. To be a patient who completes the study is also associated with improvement in the blood pressure and blood pressure/total cholesterol objectives.