Aim: To find out the impact of clinical pharmacy services in improving quality of life and assessment of drug related problems of NSAIDs in knee osteoarthritis patients.
Objective: The objectives of the study are
• To assess the quality of life of knee osteoarthritis patients using Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score ( KOOS).
• To improve the quality of life in knee osteoarthritis (OA) patients by providing clinical pharmacy services (Patient Counselling, Providing Pamphlet).
• To assess the drug related problems due to NSAIDS. Materials and methods: A retrospective and prospective study was carried out in total 170 post OA patients aged >40 years with history of chronic pain on knees. A specially designed data entry form was used to collect demographic details and KOOS score was used to assess the quality of life of knee osteoarthritis patients by taking, patient’s opinion about their knee and associated problems. Patient information leaflet was prepared and assessed.
Results: The study result showed that patients had an improved quality of life after patient counseling. Drug related problems of NSAIDs were monitored in about 100 patients. Cardiovascular and gastrointestinal risks are the most common drug related problems that are reported after the administration of NSAIDs.
Conclusion: Modified KOOS score was found to be greater for patients after they were given counseling based on their medication and lifestyle. An informative patient counseling helped the patients to lead a better life thus brought out a better health related quality of life. Gastro intestinal risk and cardiovascular risk are the most common drug related problems caused due to NSAIDs. Due to the co-prescription of PPI drugs to all most all the patients who were prescribed with NSAIDs, incidence of ulcer had not been reported. Those patients who were on long term use of NSAIDs had been found to have elevated blood pressure. Patient information leaflet was prepared and distributed through orthopedic department to improve patients understanding of disease management and the developed leaflet was found to be very useful to the patients.
