In ambulatory settings in Korean hospitals, pharmacists have had quite few chances to teach and councel patients on medication to increase drug compliance which is most vital to successful drug therapy. In most cases, these medication teachings are performed by primary physicians or nurses, but many times ignored or not so efficient to assure patients´ compliance to medications. Clinical pharmacy services in the ambulatory settings such as family practice have been proved to be effective and essential to increase patients´ drug compliance and consequently successful drug therapy in other countries. However, this type of service has not been initiated or evaluated in Korean hospital settings.
A pharmacy residency program was initiated in family practice of Seoul National University Hospital to implement a clinical pharmacy service since march, 1991, Within this program, a specific medication teaching model was designed for the patients with essential hypertension whose diastolic blood pressures were above 90㎜Hg. The selected patients were referred to the pharmacist by primary physicians after medical evaluations and allocated to either study(n=11) or control group(n=14). On the first visit, the pharmacist obtained a medical and medication history, a blood pressure recording and lastly questioned about drug compliance. The study group patients were provided with both written and oral medication teachings by attending pharmacist. Medication compliance and blood pressure changes were monitored.
As the results, mean percentage of medication compliance(95.6±10.7%) in study group was significantly larger than that of control group(70.6±37.9%)(p<0.05). In study group, the diastolic blood pressures of initial and last visit were 101.6±10.9㎜Hg and 96.4±8.6㎜Hg respectively whereas, in control group, 96.3±12.3㎜Hg and 95.3±9.5㎜ Hg.
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