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Pharmaceutical interventions on prescription problems in a Danish pharmacy setting

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Abstract

Background International studies regarding pharmacists’ interventions towards prescription problems produce highly variable results. The only peer-reviewed study in a Danish setting estimated an intervention rate of 2.3 per 1,000 prescriptions. With the introduction of a new tool for registration, we hypothesized that a better estimate could be obtained. Objective We aimed to produce an up-to-date estimate of the extent and type of pharmacists’ interventions towards prescription problems in a Danish pharmacy setting Setting The study was conducted at Copenhagen Sønderbro Pharmacy, a large urban 24-hour pharmacy. Method Data were collected prospectively through an electronic form. All interventions were primarily classified as either clinical or administrative in nature, and further classified in a number of pre-determined subcategories. Furthermore, information about age, sex, time of day, the wording of the prescription, the performed intervention, the person performing the intervention and the type of prescriber were recorded. All entries were manually validated by a study pharmacist. Main outcome measure The intervention rate, given as the number of interventions per 1,000 prescriptions. Results We found 599 validated interventions. Thirty-two percent of the interventions were clinical and 68% administrative by nature. Fifty-one percent of the administrative and 35% of the clinical interventions were regarding antibiotics. In the study period, a total of 55,522 prescriptions were filled out together with 3,069 dose-dispensing packages, giving a rate of 10.2 (9.4–11.1) interventions per 1,000 prescriptions. Conclusion We found an intervention rate substantially higher than reported in previous Danish studies.

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Notes

  1. A pharmaconomist is equivalent to a pharmacy technician but with a substantially longer education (3 years).

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the staff at Sønderbro Pharmacy for the effort of performing the registrations. Furthermore, our thanks go to Mikkel Nørreslet and Charlotte Vermehren for valuable comments on the manuscript.

Conflicts of interest

None.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Unit of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Southern Denmark, JB Winsløwsvej 19, 2, 5000, Odense C, Denmark

    Anton Pottegård & Jesper Hallas

  2. Research Unit for General Practice, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense C, Denmark

    Anton Pottegård & Jens Søndergaard

Authors
  1. Anton Pottegård
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  2. Jesper Hallas
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  3. Jens Søndergaard
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anton Pottegård.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 3.

Table 3 Examples of all intervention categories
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Appendix 2

See Table 4

Table 4 Examples of potentially serious clinical interventions
Full size table

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Pottegård, A., Hallas, J. & Søndergaard, J. Pharmaceutical interventions on prescription problems in a Danish pharmacy setting. Int J Clin Pharm 33, 1019–1027 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11096-011-9580-4

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