Abstract
We carried out a survey to investigate the situation of insulin usage by diabetes patients and that of the pharmaceutical care currently provided with the aim of improving it.The survey targeted 246 patients visiting 8 hospital and community pharmacies which were members of the Pharmacists’Diabetes Research Society.
The results showed that though patients were aware of the number of units to be used and injection times,27% of them either forgot to inject themselves or were late in doing so.An analysis by type of injection device,revealed that patients using a multiple insulin kit (including very fast type) and a fast type injection device were better at keeping to injection times and had better compliance.
The survey also revealed that the majority of problems experienced by patients were daily life-related (34%) or device related (33%) and that 83.7% of them were satisfied with the care provided by pharmacists.In addition,we feel it showed a clear need for pharmacists to be more proactive in providing pharmaceutical care that considers the problems of patients.
