Role of Pharmacist in Addressing the Adverse Drug Reactions and Improving the Knowledge of Patients Regarding Their Drug Therapy at Government Civil Hospital Khairpur, Sindh, Pakistan

Adverse Drug Reactions are among the major problems that cause mortality and morbidity in patients worldwide. In this study, Adverse Drug Reactions with common medicines were addressed, and the knowledge of pharmacist for prescribed medicine was also evaluated before and after educating the patients by pharmacist. The duration of this study was one year from October 2016 to October 2017. A descriptive cross-sectional study was designed and completed on 150 patients admitted to the hospital's medical ward. Patients whose ages were between 18-60 years, either male or female, who reported chronic diseases and took medication for a long time were selected for the study. Children or patients having < 18 years and taking medicine for a short period were excluded from this study. Selected patients were evaluated, and results were collected. Finally, the collected data was analysed with the 21st version of IBM’s Statistical Package for Service Solutions (SPSS v23). Of 150 selected patients, 61% were male, and 39% were female. Most patients were from the 18-30 age group, i.e., 28%. 60% of the patients hail from rural areas, and 40% from an urban areas. Of the 150 patient studied, 36.7% were illiterate, and only 4.7% of patients were above intermediate. Most of the patients were working in different government and private sectors. 8% of those taking the combination of Amoxicillin+Omeprazole+Salbutamol reported side-effects, whereas minimum side effects (2.0%) with Cholorothiazide+Atenolol+ Paracetamol. Reported adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in patients were Headache (14.9%), nausea (13.8%), vomiting (10.3%), abdominal pain (12.6%), constipation (8.0%), diarrhea (10.3%), skin rashes (5.7%), loss of appetite (4.6%), dizziness (6.9%), tiredness (6.9%) and confusion (5.7%). The knowledge of patients regarding therapy was compared before and after counseling that shows increased awareness in patients after counseling the patients. Before counseling average knowledge of patients was 27.5% that increased to 50.3% after counseling. After analyzing the results, it is concluded that pharmacist counseling and providing education to patients can significantly decrease the ADRs and increase the compliance of drugs that will ultimately enhance patients' quality of life. It was recommended that the hospital should appoint the pharmacist, especially a clinical pharmacist, and Hospital administration should arrange the programs for the awareness of patients on appropriate uses of drugs and their side effects.