Pharmacist telemonitoring of antidepressant use: effects on pharmacist-patient collaboration

Abstract

Objective: To explore the impact of telephone-based education and monitoring by community pharmacists on multiple outcomes of pharmacist-patient collaboration.

Design: A randomized, controlled, unblinded, mixed experimental design.

Setting: Eight Wisconsin community pharmacies within a large managed care organization.

Patients: A total of 63 patients presenting new antidepressant prescriptions to their community pharmacies.

Interventions: Patients were randomized to receive either three monthly telephone calls from pharmacists providing pharmacist-guided education and monitoring (PGEM) or usual pharmacist's care. Usual care is defined as that education and monitoring which pharmacists may typically provide patients at the study pharmacies.

Main outcome measures: Patient's frequency of feedback with the pharmacist, antidepressant knowledge, antidepressant beliefs, antidepressant adherence at 3 and 6 months, improvement in depression symptoms, and orientation toward treatment progress.

Results: Of the 60 patients who completed the study, 28 received PGEM and 32 received usual pharmacist's care. Results showed that PGEM had a significant and positive effect on patient feedback, knowledge, medication beliefs, and perceptions of progress. There were no significant group differences in patient adherence or symptoms at 3 months; however, PGEM patients who completed the protocol missed fewer doses than did the usual care group at 6 months (P < or = .05).

Conclusion: Antidepressant telemonitoring by community pharmacists can significantly and positively affect patient feedback and collaboration with pharmacists. Longer-term studies with larger samples are needed to assess the generalizability of findings. Future research also needs to explore additional ways to improve clinical outcomes.