Abstract
Introduction Patients with Parkinson disease (PD) use multiple drugs. This pill burden with consequent poor adherence may cause worsening of motor symptoms and drug-related problems. Therefore, a multifaceted pharmacist-led intervention program was designed to improve adherence, motor-functioning, and quality of life (QoL) in PD patients.
Methods This prospective pilot study was performed in an outpatient PD clinic, where usual care was compared with stepwise introduction of 3 interventions: unit dose packaging (UDP), Parkinson KinetiGraph (PKG), and pharmacist-led medication review (MR).The study analyzed endpoints at 6 weeks (stage 1, usual care), 10 weeks (stage 2, UDP), 14 weeks (stage 3, UDP + PKG), and 26 weeks (UDP + PKG + MR) on motor symptoms, medication adherence, and QoL.
Results Medication adherence improved significantly after the combined UDP, PKG, and MR intervention in nonadherent patients. On time significantly increased from 56% (30) at stage 1, to 64% (+/- 25) at stage 3, and to 68% (+/- 27) at stage 4, which correlated with an increase of 1.4 and 2.2 hours in stage 3 and 4, respectively. Quality of life only improved significantly after MR (Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire with 8 domains, 21.0 +/- 3.5 in stage 3 vs 19.5 +/- 5.3 in stage 4, P = 0.01).
Conclusions Our data did not support the added value of UDP alone or in combination with PKG. Only the combined intervention of UDP, PKG, and MR showed significant improvements in medication adherence, on time, and QoL. This supports the effectiveness of MR by a clinical pharmacist for PD patients in an outpatient setting. Therefore, this small scale study should be followed by larger-scale trials on this topic.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 14-19 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Clinical Neuropharmacology |
Volume | 41 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Keywords
- Parkinson's Disease
- Motor-functioning
- medicine use
- Medication adherence
- Quality of Life
- Unit dose packaging
- Parkinson Kinetigraph
- Drug utilization review
- Clinical Pharmacist
- ADHERENCE
- QUESTIONNAIRE
- NONADHERENCE
- METAANALYSIS
- THERAPY