A Study on the Impact of Pharmacist Intervention in Patient Counselling on Medication Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

Patient counselling is an important task to improve medication management in non-communicable diseases. A prospective interventional pre-post study was conducted in the medical clinic at University Hospital- KDU to investigate the impact of pharmacists-led patient counselling on Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) based lifestyle changes and treatment in Type 2 Diabetic Mellitus (T2DM) on selected 124 patients, who were randomly divided into test and control groups (n=62 each). Baseline KAPs related to T2DM were first measured using a questionnaire, and two months from the baseline, the test group underwent a pharmacist-led patient-oriented counselling session for 5-10 minutes along with a printed leaflet covering the sections addressed in the questionnaire. After two months from the intervention, both groups (n=52 each) were re-evaluated using the same questionnaire and total KAP scores, Fasting Blood Sugar (FBS) and Body Mass Index (BMI) before and after intervention were compared. The mean Pre-Test-KAP score of 39.11±5.82 of the test group has increased up to 49.02±3.39 (p=0.00; <0.05), showing the intervention was successful. The mean FBS level of the test group (147.58±43.30 mg/dl) at the baseline has shown an improvement (134.13±40.02 mg/dl) too. A significant positive correlation was observed between the baseline knowledge and the educational level (p=0.012; <0.05). However, a significant improvement in BMI was not observed in both the groups following the intervention (P>0.05). Therefore, this study shows that increment in KAP through patient counselling has a positive impact on reducing the FBS level and overall management of T2DM.