Background: Adherence to treatment recommendations is challenging in hemodialysis (HD) patients, yet it has been found to be extremely crucial in obtaining positive clinical and health outcomes.
Aim: To evaluate the influence of implementing an educational process provided by the clinical pharmacist on HD patients' adherence to treatment recommendations and clinical outcomes.
Method: A randomized controlled trial was conducted in which patients from three HD units in Jordan were randomly allocated to either an intervention (n = 60) or a control group (n = 60). During a three-month period, the intervention group received a monthly educational approach from a clinical pharmacist with recommendations for improving medication, nutrition, and fluid adherence, whereas the control received standard medical care. The primary outcome was patient adherence to HD-related recommendations. Quality of life (QOL), disease awareness, hospitalization, and changes in biochemicals were secondary outcomes.
Results: The final analysis included 114 patients (n = 57/group). In the intervention group, there was a significant improvement in total adherence score versus control (1170.6 ± 44.1 vs. 665.8 ± 220.7, p < 0.001), and adherence to various aspects including episodes/duration of shortening HD, dietary guidelines, fluid restriction, and prescription medications. The clinical pharmacist intervention enhanced patients' QOL and improved awareness and perspective of the disease. Following the intervention, laboratory values for urea, creatinine, phosphorus, and hemoglobin were considerably improved. Additionally, the intervention group had fewer hospitalizations than the control group (0.54 ± 0.07 vs. 0.78 ± 0.26, p < 0.001).
Conclusion: Providing clinical pharmacy education to HD patients improved adherence behavior and clinical outcomes. This illustrates the importance of clinical pharmacists as interdisciplinary team members in dialysis care. Trial registration This trial has been registered in ISRCTN Register (ISRCTN75517095). https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/ISRCTN75517095.
Keywords: Health outcomes; Hemodialysis; Quality of life; Randomized controlled trial; Treatment recommendations.
© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.