Evaluation by community pharmacists of therapeutic response in patients with arthrotic disease

Introduction: Osteoarthritis is a disease that causes pain, stiffness and functional disability. Nowadays the treatment is symptomatic, do not exist drug to stop the osteoarthritis disease, allowing patients should suffer as little as possible.

Objectives: To evaluate the therapeutic response in osteoarthritis patients from community pharmacy.

Material & Methods: Quasi experimental not randomized study realized in community pharmacies from Madrid. A structured questionnaire was completed, gathering information about patients: medical report, prescribed drug, affected joint, degree of pain, functional joint condition, patient general condition and pharmaceutical realized intervention.

Results: The sample was constituted by 141 patients. The included drugs belong to groups: N02B (36.1 %), M01A (27.6 %), N02AX (23.4 %), M01AH (14.1 %), M01AX (27.6 %) prescribed for osteoarthritis. With relation to the pain, 34 (24.1 %) patients had a reduction of pain of 20 mm in VAS (Visual Analogue Scale), reaching clinically significant improvement. With regard to the quality of life, the most affected activity was it of rising and lowering stairs, presented very much pain when 58 (41.1 %) subjects to rise and to lower stairs. We detected 111 negative outcomes associated with medication (NOMs) of those were inefficiency 61 (54.9 %). The pharmaceutical intervention was to offer sanitary education in the selfcare of the joints to 29 (20.5 %) patients, recommending physical activity to 32 (22.7 %) and ­recommending food-diet-exercise to 23 (16.3 %), deriving the specialist to 19 (13.4 %) and family doctor to 12 (8.5 %).

Conclusion: The community pharmacist´s intervention in osteoarthritis patients helps to improve the efficiency of the treatments, improving the results of health of the same ones.