[The Significance of Pharmacist Intervention Focused on Improvement of Adverse Events and Cancer Pain]

Abstract

It was reported that focusing on palliative care for patients with cancer improved their anxiety and depression and prolonged their survival. Similarly, the pharmacist intervention for cancer patients suggested the improvement in anxiety and depression; but, such improvement has not yet been demonstrated by focusing on pharmacist attitudes and behaviors of which the patients were the primary beneficiaries. Therefore, we evaluated the significance of pharmacist intervention focusing on improvement of adverse events and cancer pain. We randomized patients to pharmacist intervention group or no intervention group and evaluated whether the pharmacist intervention improved patients' anxiety and depression. Patients receiving new chemotherapy in the outpatient chemotherapy room were invited to enroll in this study between July 2015 and February 2017. The patients were assessed for their quality of life using the Structured Clinical Interview for ACD and for anxiety and depression using the Structured Clinical Interview for HAD at baseline and again at the 4th chemotherapy. The difference between the baseline and 4th chemotherapy scores was calculated and compared between the pharmacist intervention and no intervention groups. HAD depression subscale and HAD scale scores decreased in the pharmacist intervention group compared to the no intervention group,(-1 versus 0.5, p=0.024)and(-3 versus 0.5, p=0.011)respectively. We demonstrated that the pharmacist intervention focused on improvement of adverse event and cancer pain decreased cancer patients' anxiety and depression.