Mathew T Francis K. Chandrasekaran
To study the effectiveness of knowledge based approach for the improvement of patient adherence and reducing the severity of adverse drug reaction in anti tubercular therapy in the pulmonology department of an 800 bedded hospital at Coimbatore. Both in patients and outpatients who received the treatment for Tuberculosis (TB) aged between 16 to 75 years was included in this study. A prospective observational study was conducted over a period of 6 month from July-December 2011. Patients were informed to check their LFT, once every 15 days of two months and to come for three reviews during the intensive phase of the therapy. A total of 60 patients were enrolled, out of which 50 males and 10 females. And it was evident that males were more prone to TB than females. Most prominent age group was ‘46-60’ comprising of 27 (45%) patients, with 58% patients having smoking habit. 95 % of patients diagnosed with PTB. All the patients were having the cardinal signs of TB and got counselling by the clinical pharmacist using patient information pamphlet. 12% of patients who couldn’t answer the scheduled questionnaire were re-counseled. 1st review by 100% patients, 2nd review by 96.60% and 3rd review by 90% of total patients. Most of the subjects were uneducated and with a poor living standard. All the 100% of patients with high living standard came for all the review. Occurrence of ADR influences the patients from stopping the ATT. Hepatotoxicity was found to be the major ADR. Distance to the study clinic was also found to be influencing the adherence of the patient. From our study it was concluded that the clinical pharmacist can exhibit a vital role during the TB therapy in TB centers, pulmonology departments and DOTS centers to guarantee a better patient therapeutic outcome.
