Framework Allows Pharmacists to Strategize Medication Adherence Efforts

Community pharmacy teams said a 3-item framework designed to help develop strategies to address medication adherence was useful and quickly adaptable, according to study findings published in Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy.

“Pharmacists are well-positioned to address nonadherence, as they are trained to identify and resolve drug-related problems, including medication management and intake difficulties. In addition, pharmacists are confident in their ability to address nonadherence and prepared to tackle this problem,” stated study authors.

To help pharmacy teams develop strategies for better addressing medication adherence in patients, researchers developed a simple framework consisting of 3 items: (1) the target patient (which patients do you want to approach? Or “who?”); (2) the target plan (How do you want to approach the target patients? Or, “how?”); and (3) the target number (How many target patients do you want to approach? Or, “how many?”).

Ten pharmacy teams tested the framework. A brainstorming session to develop their unique strategies based on the framework took an average 31 ± 8 minutes, according to study findings. Strategies spanned 18 different target patients and 20 different plans. Target goals for the teams ranged from 1 patient to all patients.

During the strategy testing day, a total 325 encounters were observed by researchers. The encounters included 208 patients who met the predefined target patients. Pharmacy teams addressed medication adherence with 73 patients and performed medication adherence counseling with 50 patients, or 15%.

“The use of the framework seems promising for increasing adherence counseling compared to a previous study with a similar methodology and setting that reported a rate of medication-adherence counseling of 6.7%,” stated researchers.

In a future study, they plan to investigate whether pharmacy teams can successfully engage patients in medication adherence counseling, which, they noted, may lead to recommendations for specific interventions.

Reference:
Baumgartner PC, Comment N, Hersberger KE, Arnet I. Development and testing of a framework for defining a strategy to address medication adherence during patient encounters in community pharmacies. Explor Res Clin Soc Pharm. Published online March 9, 2022. doi:10.1016/j.rcsop.2022.100123