BackgroundEpilepsy is a complex chronic disorder which affects health-related quality of life (HRQOL), especially in women.Pharmaceutical care (PC) allows direct intervention between the pharmacist, the patient and the other healthcare team members to optimise treatments in order to reduce negative outcomes related to medication and contribute to improving HRQOL.The aim of the study was to establish the impact of the application of a pharmaceutical care programme on the HRQOL of women with epilepsy.MethodsThis study is a pragmatic randomised controlled trial involving women with epilepsy (WWE) over 18 years of age.The intervention group (IG) received a pharmaceutical care programme consisting of medication review follow-up according to Dáder’s method, health education and therapeutic drug monitoring of anticonvulsants.The impact was assessed by changes in seizure frequency, in the self-administered questionnaires (the QOLIE-31, Liverpool AEP, CES-D, Haynes-Sackett test and Moriski-Green test) and between the first interview and the one at the end of six months of follow-up.A Student’s t-test was performed to compare the final QOLIE-31 score between groups and a paired Student’s t-test was used to determine the change in each group between the start and the end of follow-up.ResultsOne hundred eighty-two WWE entered the study and 144 (79.1%) completed it. The t-test for comparing the final QOLIE-31 scores between groups yielded a t = −2.166 and confidence interval (CI) (95%): −10.125; −0.4625, p-value =0.0319. The change (Δ) in the QOLIE-31 score for the IG was 12.45 points (p-value <0.001) and for the control group it was 2.61 (p-value =0.072). With 10.7 as the minimally important change we found a relative risk of 2.17 (CI: 1.37; 3.43) and a number needed to treat (NNT) of 3.5.ConclusionsThe study demonstrated that the application of a pharmaceutical care programme significantly improves HRQOL in WWE. The NNT we found allows a recommendation to implement the PC programme for the additional benefit that would be obtained in patients’ HRQOL.Trial registrationCurrent Controlled Trials ISRCTN46864306 IPHIWWE study.

Nearly three quarters of the analysed patients had inadequate knowledge regarding the medicines they were taking. Unskilled workers and caregivers were at a higher risk of lacking of medication knowledge. Other factors that correlated with inadequate medication knowledge were the use of more than one drug and not knowing the name of the medication dispensed.

Abstract

The designed protocol helped to detect deficiencies in the information to the patients about their medications, as well as the PRM and RNM, and is shown to be tool that is easy to use and apply.

Early clinical diagnosis of advanced Parkinson’s disease (APD) may be difficult. This study aimed to validate a simple screening tool, the CDEPA questionnaire (“Cuestionario De Enfermedad de Parkinson Avanzada” [Questionnaire for Advanced Parkinson’s Disease]), for the identification of APD in daily practice. The study included 173 consecutively selected patients with PD (40% were women, mean age was 68.4 ± 10.5 years), stratified according to the Hoehn and Yahr (HY) scale. The CDEPA questionnaire defined APD as the presence of severe disability requiring help for activities of daily living (ADL), motor fluctuations with limitation or inability to perform ADL, severe dysphagia, recurrent falls, or dementia. The diagnostic performance of the questionnaire was assessed against the gold standard criterion based on clinical judgment. PD was categorized as advanced in 65 (38%) patients when using the gold standard and in 109 (63%) patients when the CDEPA questionnaire was used. The CDEPA questionnaire and the gold standard agreed moderately (kappa statistic of 0.48, P < 0.001). The CDEPA classified APD with a sensitivity of 97%; specificity of 57%; total accuracy of 72.3%; and area under the curve (for a binary classifier) of 77.2%. Significant differences were found between the groups created by the CDEPA in several usual PD evaluations (HY Scale, SCOPA Motor Scale, Non-motor Symptoms Scale for PD, Clinical Impression of Severity Index for PD, Clinical Global Impression–Severity Scale, and Patient Global Impression–Severity Scale). CDEPA showed satisfactory inter-rater agreement (kappa = 0.88) and test–retest concordance (kappa 0.83). In conclusion, the CDEPA questionnaire is a valid, reliable, and useful instrument for easily screening APD.