Impact of Pharmacist Counseling on Reducing Instances of Adverse Events That Can Affect the Quality of Life of Chemotherapy Outpatients with Breast Cancer

Overview

Journal J Pharm Health Care Sci

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Pharmacology

Date 2018 May 9

PMID 29736254

Citations 8

Authors

Kazuhide Tanaka

Akiyo Hori

Tomoya Tachi

Tomohiro Osawa

Katsuhiro Nagaya

Teppei Makino

Seiji Inoue

Masahiro Yasuda

Takashi Mizui

Takumi Nakada

Chitoshi Goto

Hitomi Teramachi

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: In recent years, cancer chemotherapy is being conducted at outpatient clinics, wherein pharmacists are involved with patient guidance and management of adverse events as experts in medication therapy. Therefore, we clarified the influence of interventions by pharmacists during counseling of patients with cancer on patients' quality of life.

Methods: To determine this influence, we conducted a survey to assess the quality of life of 39 patients with breast cancer who underwent their initial course of outpatient cancer chemotherapy at Gifu Municipal Hospital. A quality of life survey was conducted before the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd courses of treatment and was based on a method obtained from a survey paper entitled, "Quality of Life Questionnaire for Cancer Patients Treated with Anticancer Drugs."

Results: Twenty patients were assigned to the intervention group, which received pharmacist counseling, and nineteen patients were assigned to the non-intervention group, which received no pharmacist counseling. Both groups were compared immediately before the 1st course and 2nd course. Regarding the subscale of social relationships, a significant difference was observed for malaise ( = 0.043), with the non-intervention group experiencing them to a greater degree than the intervention group. Regarding the change between immediately before the 1st course and the 3rd course, a significant difference was observed in the subscale of social relationships for nausea ( = 0.017), with the non-intervention group experiencing it to a greater degree than the intervention group.

Conclusions: The results suggest that receiving pharmacists' guidance on adverse events and individually adjusted prescriptions tailored to address the occurrence of adverse events improved the treatment environment and enhanced the quality of life in the intervention group. These findings are beneficial in maintaining patients' quality of life during cancer treatment.

Trial Registration: No. UMIN000027171, Registration date: Apr 27, 2017. Retrospectively registered.

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