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Hospital pharmacists can improve adherence to blood pressure drugs and blood pressure control, research shows.
Manuel Morgado and team from the Health Science Research Centre, University of Beira Interior in Covilha, Portugal, revealed significantly greater adherence to antihypertensives and marked improvements in blood pressure control in patients assigned to a pharmacy intervention, compared with controls.
The results are based on a randomised controlled trial of 197 patients attending a secondary care, hypertension/dyslipidaemia outpatient clinic in the university teaching hospital of Cova de Beira Hospital Centre between July 2009 and June 2010.
Intervention patients had significantly lower systolic blood pressure (-6.8mmHg; p=0.006) and diastolic blood pressure (-2.9 mmHg; p=0.020) by the end of the study than controls.
Medication adherence was also significantly higher in the intervention than control group at the end of the study (74.5% vs 57.6%).
Morgado and team conclude: “Pharmacist intervention can significantly improve medication adherence and blood pressure control in patients treated with antihypertensive agents.”
