Effect of a minimal pharmacy intervention on improvement of adherence to asthma guidelines.

Abstract

To study the effectiveness of a minimal intervention strategy to improve adherence to paediatric asthma guidelines. A group of pharmacists was encouraged to discuss essential elements of asthma care with the general practitioners they normally worked with. Adherence to guidelines was evaluated by studying prescriptions for children with asthma. We compared the treatment of children registered at pharmacies which participated in the study (intervention group) with a control group of children registered at other, non-participating pharmacies (reference group) and with the results of an earlier study. The numbers of children who had no short-acting betamimetics, no inhaled corticosteroids while on long-acting betamimetics, and more than one type of inhaler. The number of children who had no short-acting betamimetics was significantly lower in the intervention group (176/1447 vs 534/3527; p<0.01) and fewer children had no inhaled corticosteroid although on long-acting betamimetics (6/219 vs 41/477; p=0.03). The number of children who had more than one type of inhaler was equal in both groups (5.1%), but this was significantly lower compared with the earlier study (119/2311 vs 239/3217; p<0.01). The assistance of pharmacists with adherence to paediatric asthma guidelines is beneficial. Pharmacists should be involved actively in the care of children with asthma.