Background: Adherence to medication is often low. Pharmacists may improve adherence, but a one-size-fits-all\napproach will not work: different patients have different needs. Goal of the current study is to assess the effectiveness\nof a patient-tailored, telephone-based intervention by a pharmacist at the start of pharmacotherapy aimed at improving\nmedication adherence, satisfaction with information and counselling and the beliefs about medicines.\nMethods/Design: A cluster randomized controlled intervention trial in 30 Dutch pharmacies, randomly assigned to 1\nof 2 intervention groups. Each group consists of an intervention arm and an usual care arm. The intervention arm in\nthe first group is the usual care arm in the second group and vice versa. One intervention arm focuses on patients\nstarting with antidepressants or bisphosphonates and the other on antilipaemic drugs or renin angiotensin system\n(RAS)-inhibitors. The intervention consists of a telephone call by a pharmacist 2 or 3 weeks after a new\nprescription. A random sample of pharmacies will send questionnaires 3 months after the first prescription. This\ncontains socio-demographic questions, a measure of beliefs about medicines (BMQ), satisfaction with information\nreceived (SIMS, abbreviated) and frequency of pharmacy counselling (Consumer Quality Index, CQI, abbreviated).\nThe primary outcome measure will be medication adherence calculated from dispensing records retrieved\n12 months after the intervention. Patients� beliefs on medication, perception of the quality of information received\nand pharmacy counselling are secondary outcomes.\nDiscussion: The TelCIP study will determine the effectiveness of telephone counselling to improve adherence in\npatients initiating a new treatment. By measuring satisfaction with information and counselling and beliefs about\nmedication the study will also give clues for the reason of a potential increase in adherence. Finally the study will\nprovide information on which patients are most likely to benefit from this intervention.
Loading....