Palliative pharmaceutical care: a randomized, prospective study of telephone-based prescription and medication counseling services for treating chronic pain.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effects of providing a unique telephone-based pharmaceutical care program to a sample of patients enrolled at a university pain clinic in Philadelphia, Pa. We hypothesized that in comparison to routine pharmaceutical care, the telephone-based pharmaceutical care program would have a positive impact on delivery of medication, quality of life, and overall satisfaction with the pain clinic program.


METHODS
One hundred seven pain clinic patients were randomly assigned to the control and intervention groups. Seventy-four patients (control group, n = 36; intervention group, n = 38) met inclusion criteria.


METHODS
The control group continued to receive care and prescription services through the same means as prior to the study. There were 2 components to the pharmaceutical care program offered to the intervention group. The first component consisted of a palliative care pharmacy company, PainRxperts, providing specialized prescription services tailored to the needs of a pain medicine clinical practice. The second component involved the palliative-trained pharmacist's proactive monitoring of patient pharmacotherapy for potential or actual drug related problems (DRPs).


RESULTS
Intervention patients perceived that they had better access to medication, more efficient processing of prescriptions, and fewer stigmatizing experiences. They also endorsed pharmacists' behavioral interventions such as medication counseling, availability to answer medication-related questions, and non-judgmental attitudes when managing opioid prescriptions.


CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that the palliative-trained pharmacist can play an important collaborative role in managing chronic pain. Application of the pharmaceutical care model in pain medicine centers can improve satisfaction and remove some of the barriers to good pharmaceutical care facing patients with chronic pain disorders
Gammaitoni
A R
AR
PainRxperts, MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Gallagher
R M
RM
Welz
M
M
Gracely
E J
EJ
Knowlton
C H
CH
Voltis-Thomas
O
O