Medication Counseling Center in a teaching hospital

Abstract

Patient compliance is often not achieved during drug therapy. Many reasons including lack of patients’
understanding regarding medication and disease, poor socioeconomic pattern, unavailability of drugs are
attributed to this situation. Providing counseling to patients can improve their understanding regarding
medication, disease and life style modifications which in turn improves compliance. Medication counseling
centers are one of the means to counsel the patients. The study was conducted to analyze the performance of
such a center at Manipal Teaching Hospital, a teaching hospital in Western Nepal. Patients were counseled as
per the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act-1990 guidelines and data were collected from the documentation
form of the center and analyzed. Results indicated that 84.5% of the patients were directed to the medication
counseling center by the pharmacists. Nearly one quarter of the population was either asthmatic or chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease patients. Bronchodilators were found to be the major therapeutic category
of drugs and were found in 26.7% of the patients. Among the various counseling aids, placebo inhalers were
used in 45.1% of the patients. The counseling pharmacists dedicated an average time period of 6-10 minutes
in about 42.1% of the patients. Language was found to be the major barrier while counseling 16.5% of the
patients. The study concluded that the medication counseling center can play a definite role in enhancing patients’
understanding about medications and disease pattern, which in turn may improve patient compliance.
Key Words: Compliance aids, Counseling aids, Counseling barriers,
Medication counseling center, Patient compliance.