抄録
Multi-drug therapy is commonly used over the long term for the treatment of patients in psychiatric ward but this may increase the incidence of adverse events and reduce patients' QOL. Patient compliance is therefore lower than in other wards.
In the present study, we evaluated whether the medication consultation provided by pharmacists was effective in improving patients' QOL and reducing drug costs. The subjects were 39 patients who received medication consultation in the psychiatric ward between April 2003 and March 2004. The patients' QOL was assessed using our QOL assessment scale (5 grades) both before and after medication consultation. In addition, when drugs were changed or removed from prescriptions, we calculated the resulting differences in drug costs between before and after such changes. Of the 39 patients who received medication consultation, 14 (36%) reported adverse events, indicating a reduced QOL. The mean number of drugs for patients who reported adverse events was significantly higher than that for those without adverse events. As a result of our review of the content of prescriptions for patients with adverse events and requesting their physicians to change drugs or cut them from prescriptions, QOL improved for all 14 patients and a decrease in drug costs of 1, 217.5 yen/day was achieved. These findings suggest that consultation provided by pharmacists on medication and QOL in the psychiatric ward not only improves patients' QOL but also reduces drug costs.
