Objective. To determine whether a pharmacist-led medications review in primary care reduces the number of drugs and the number of drug-related problems. Design. Prospective randomized controlled trial. Setting. Liljeholmen Primary Care Centre, Stockholm, Sweden. Subjects. 209 patients aged ≥ 65 years with five or more different medications. Intervention. Patients answered a questionnaire regarding medications. The pharmacist reviewed all medications (prescription, non-prescription, and herbal) regarding recommendations and renal impairment, giving advice to patients and GPs. Each patient met the pharmacist before seeing their GP. Control patients received their usual care. Main outcome measures. Drug-related problems and number of drugs. Secondary outcomes included health care utilization and self-rated health during 12 months of follow-up. Results. No significant difference was seen when comparing change in drug-related problems between the groups. However, a significant decrease in drug-related problems was observed in the intervention group (from 1.73 per patient at baseline to 1.31 at follow-up, p < 0.05). The change in number of drugs was more pronounced in the intervention group (p < 0.046). Intervention group patients were not admitted to hospital on fewer occasions or for fewer days, and there was no significant difference between the two groups regarding utilization of primary care during follow-up. Self-rated health remained unchanged in the intervention group, whereas a drop (p < 0.02) was reported in the control group. This resulted in a significant difference in change in self-rated health between the groups (p < 0.047). Conclusions. The addition of a skilled pharmacist to the primary care team may contribute to reductions in numbers of drugs and maintenance of self-rated health in elderly patients with polypharmacy.

Disagreement amongst physicians about hyperlipidaemia leads to conflicting information being given to patients. It is important to be aware of these differences when trying to reach a consensus on this topic. Corresponding knowledge and attitudes amongst members of the public should also be studied.

Knowledge was good about causative cardiovascular risk factors, but poor about healthy eating. Physicians were expected to have an interest in patients' lifestyle and in prevention. This type of knowledge is important for preventive work.

The results indicate that doctors use very different judgement strategies for drug prescription concerning patients with hypercholesterolaemia. A fairly large subgroup of the doctors did not include coronary heart disease in their judgements, in contrast to the present guidelines.

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