Doctors’ acceptance of recommendations for patients with the opportunity for pharmacotherapy improvement

Objective

To identify and quantify the influence of different variables on the implementation of pharmacotherapy optimisation measures in hospitalised patients.

Method

Descriptive transversal study. Period: 2000–2007. Environment: public university general hospital (25,000 patients admitted/year).

The Programme implemented to improve pharmacotherapy quality and patient safety covers 30% of all patients. Using records from the Atefarm^® Farmis application, we analysed pharmacotherapy recommendations (PRs) made by pharmacists to doctors. The selected variables were the following: Risk of the medication for ADE (1-high, 0-low), ADE category, (0-indication, 1-effectiveness, 2-safety), potential severity (scale of 1 to 5), impact of the PR (0-effectiveness, 1-safety, 2-efficiency) and implementation of the PR (yes/no).

We calculated the frequency (%) and 95% CI for the categorical variables and performed a multivariate logistical regression analysis to identify the variables’ degree of influence on implementing the PRs.

Results

We identified 7920 ADEs in 4680 patients. A PR was issued in 85% of the cases (6762), and it was implemented in 83% (95% CI 74.2–89.8). Potential severity of the ADE ≥2 (OR 1.57; 95% CI 1.27–1.94), and ADE category for effectiveness and safety (OR 1.19; 95% CI 1.02–1.39) were shown to be determining factors for implementing the PR for the patient.

Conclusions

The probability that a PR will be implemented for a patient is related to the potential severity and the category of the identified ADE. Therefore, recommendations intended to improve effectiveness of pharmacotherapy or patient safety, and those with potential clinical consequences have a greater chance of being applied to a patient.