Pharmacist intervention in patient monitoring in a psychiatric setting

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To develop a ‘Patient Monitoring Tool’ (PMT) to evaluate the quality of pharmaceutical care provided to patients in a psychiatric setting and to determine benefits of ward-based pharmacist services in this setting. METHOD: A PMT consisting of ‘Patient Monitoring Guidelines’ (PMG) and a ‘Pharmaceutical Care Issues Documentation Sheet’ (PCIDS) was developed. The tool was tested for validity, applicability, practicality and reliability and used to monitor 30 patients in an acute psychiatric ward. The PMT was implemented and evaluation was carried out after 4 weeks using a self-administered evaluation questionnaire. KEY FINDINGS: The developed PMT was found to be valid, applicable, practical and reliable for use in the psychiatric setting. A total of 75 pharmaceutical care issues (PCIs) were identified; 55 involved psychotropic medications. A positive evaluation of the tool was obtained. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated that the proposed tool can be implemented in an acute psychiatric setting and patient monitoring may lead to optimisation of patient care. Pharmacist incorporation into the multidisciplinary healthcare team and direct patient involvement may further enhance the value of such services.