Abstract
Aim
The necessity of clinical pharmacy services is increasing globally, and their provision is the upcoming direction of hospital pharmacists. The aim of this review was focused on the impact of clinical pharmacy services in the Nepalese healthcare setup.
Subjects and methods
The English-language databases of Web of Science, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Cochrane Library were searched using the following keywords: ‘pharmacy’, ‘clinical pharmacy’, pharmaceutical services’, ‘pharmacists’, pharmaceutical care’, ‘pharmacy practice’, ‘hospital pharmacy’, ‘pharmaceutical interventions’, and ‘Nepal’. Eligibility for inclusion, risk of bias assessment, and data extraction from the included studies were determined by two authors, and a narrative synthesis was conducted.
Results
This review contained a total of 14 published articles. The included studies involved the counseling and educating of patients, working as a member of the healthcare team, detecting prescribing errors, suggesting clinicians or nurses, reviewing prescriptions on the ward, giving training and monitoring of the implementation of policies, etc. The outcome of these interventions showed a reduction in the direct healthcare cost, excessive use of medicines, and prescription errors, as well as improvement in the drug utilization pattern, knowledge, as well as satisfaction of patients.
Conclusion
In order to implement and enhance clinical pharmacy services, governmental, educational, and administrative support may be needed.
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Change history
22 May 2019
The Fig. 1 was incompletely filled. The correction and corresponding data are shown below. Addition to Fig. 1 “Records identified through database searching”: <Emphasis Type="Bold">Cochrane library (</Emphasis><Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">n</Emphasis> <Emphasis Type="Bold">= 6)</Emphasis>. The original article has been corrected.
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Acknowledgements
The authors greatly acknowledge Dr. Muhammad Abbas (School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, People’s Republic of China) for his guidance and insightful comments on this manuscript. The lead author (Reyaj Mikrani) is thankful to the China Scholarship Council (CSC) for its generous financial support for him to study in China.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 30973003 and 30901993) and the Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine of Jiangsu Province (grant number LZ11093).
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Mikrani, R., Naveed, M., Mikrani, A. et al. The impact of clinical pharmacy services in Nepal in the context of current health policy: a systematic review. J Public Health (Berl.) 28, 245–255 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-019-01042-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-019-01042-y