Introduction: Due to chronic diseases and polypharmacy, the medication-related burden for patients is steadily increasing and consequently leading to worse clinical results and an overall decrease in the quality of patients’ lives. This multidimensional burden includes concerns regarding the use of medicines, financial difficulties, unwanted side effects and other problems that have a negative impact on the patient’s everyday life. Since 2014, the Medicines Use Review service is available in Slovenia with the aim to optimize and rationalize the use of medicines in individual patients. Alleviating the medication-related burden is one of the key focal points on the way to improve the patient’s health and quality of life.
Aim: The aim of this Master’s thesis is to evaluate the impact of the Medicines Use Review service, patient’s characteristics and the properties of patient’s medicines on the medication-related burden.
Methodology: We carried out a randomized controlled trial in 30 community pharmacies throughout Slovenia. Two meetings with patients were held in the framework of our research. During the first meeting, the patients in the test group were subject to the Medicines Use Review service. Demographic information and information regarding used medicines was obtained from the patients, whereas medication-related burden was measured using the Living with Medicines Questionnaire (©LMQ). By comparing the control and test group, we were trying to determine whether the Medicines Use Review service had a statistically significant impact on the alleviation of the patients’ burden between both sessions.
Results: Meetings were attended by 140 patients in total (68 in the control group and 72 in the test group). On average, their age was 68.3 ± 9.89 years and they were regularly taking 7 different medicines. The sample consisted of 57% women and 43% men. The research included patients who mostly (56%) assess their medication-related burden as minimal. Patients in a worse medical condition indicated that their burden is greater. We established that the Medicines Use Review service did not have a statistically significant impact on the reduction of medication-related burden. We managed to prove, however, that the service does in fact reduce the burden related to attitude and concerns regarding the use of medicines, which have been identified already in the beginning as the most troublesome aspect in this regard (p=0.029).
Conclusions: The Medicines Use Review does alleviate the patients’ concern regarding long-term negative effects of medicines, which is often manifested as the most prevalent burden in medical treatment. In the future, it would be sensible to focus the service on better recognition and inclusion of said patients and patients with a higher initial burden.
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