Clinical pharmacist’s recommendations at a psychiatric unit: acceptance rate of psychotropic versus nonpsychotropic medication recommendations.

Abstract

Psychiatric comorbidity has a negative influ-ence on prognosis. There have been no stud-ies on the differences in acceptance rates of psychotropic (PM) and non-psychotropic medication (non-PM) recommendations. The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the difference in acceptance rate for recommen-dations made by a clinical pharmacist for PM or non-PM patients. To evaluate the acceptance rate for recom-mendations performed by a clinical pharma-cist for psychotropic medication (PM) rec-ommendations and non-psychotropic (non-PM) medication at a psychiatric ward. Pharmaceutical recommendations by a clinical pharmacist were collected and classified from January 7th, 2021, through Augustus 2nd, 2021. The primary outcome measurement was to compare the acceptance rate between psychotropic medication (PM) recommenda-tions and nonpsychotropic medication (non-PM) recommendations. Secondary outcome measures were to evaluate differences in in-tervention type, medication-related problems, and inpatient versus outpatient medication. Descriptive data-analysis was used. A total of 239 interventions were made by the pharmacist. The overall acceptance rate was 88.7%. The acceptance rate for PM rec-ommendations was 83,8% and for non-PM recommendations was 94,5%. Differences were found in intervention type, initiated drug (p = 0.025), and medication-related problems, untreated indication (p = 0.001), adverse drug reaction (p = 0.050), and drug use without indication (p = 0.013). Nonpsychotropic medication recommenda-tions were more likely to be accepted by phy-sicians at the psychiatric unit. In collaboration with the psychiatric physician, a pharmacist can play an important role in optimizing pharmacotherapy and patient care.