Background: Patients with mental disorders hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals are at increased risk of adverse treatment outcomes, primarily due to frequent polypharmacy, somatic comorbidities, and complex treatment regimens. Clinical pharmacists can contribute significantly to pharmacotherapy optimization through their participation in multidisciplinary teams. However, data on their impact in psychiatric hospitals remain limited.
Aim: To systematically review and critically evaluate studies investigating the impact of clinical pharmacist interventions on clinical and medication-related outcomes in adults with mental disorders hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals.
Methods: The systematic review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 statement, and the protocol was prospectively registered in PROSPERO (CRD420261309290). Literature searches were performed in PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, and CENTRAL. We included studies conducted in adults with mental disorders hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals that compared the effects of clinical pharmacist interventions with care without the involvement of a clinical pharmacist. Risk of bias was assessed using the RoB 2 and ROBINS-I tools. The meta-analysis was performed in R using a random-effects model.
Results: Eighteen studies were included in the systematic review, of which one was a randomized controlled trial and 17 were based on non-randomized study designs. The meta-analysis showed reductions in drug-related problems (70.7%; 95% confidence interval [CI] 46.5–87.0), potentially inappropriate medications in older patients (36.2%; 95% CI 10.2–73.8), and the mean number of prescribed medications per patient (−1.0; 95% CI −1.5 to −0.5). Clinical outcomes, such as quality of life, length of hospital stay, and hospital readmissions, were infrequently investigated; therefore, the impact of the interventions on these outcomes could not be reliably quantified. Considerable clinical and methodological heterogeneity was observed across studies.
Conclusions: Clinical pharmacist interventions significantly improve medication-related outcomes and contribute to pharmacotherapy optimization in hospitalized patients with mental disorders. Further high-quality multicentre randomized controlled trials are needed to assess their impact on long-term clinical outcomes.
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