Evaluation of pharmacist-led medication reconciliation at county hospitals in China: A multicentre, open-label, assessor-blinded, nonrandomised controlled study

Abstract

Background Due to a lack of related research, we aimed to determine the effectiveness of a pharmacist-led medication reconciliation intervention in China. Methods We conducted a multicentre, prospective, open-label, assessor-blinded, cluster, nonrandomised controlled study at six county-level hospitals, with hospital wards serving as the clusters. We included patients discharged from the sampled hospitals who were aged ≥60 years; had ≥1 studied diagnoses; and were prescribed with ≥3 medications at discharge. Patients in the intervention group received a pharmacist-led medication reconciliation intervention and those in the control group received standard care. We assessed the incidence of medication discrepancies at discharge, patients’ medication adherence, and health care utilisation within 30 days after discharge. Results There were 429 patients in the intervention group (mean age = 72.5 years, standard deviation (SD) = 7.0) and 526 patients in the control group (mean age = 73.6 years, SD = 7.1). Of the 1632 medication discrepancies identified at discharge, fewer occurred in the intervention group (1.9 per patient on average) than the control group (2.6 per patient on average).The intervention significantly reduced the incidence of medication discrepancy by 9.6% (95% confidence interval (CI) = −15.6, −3.6, P = 0.002) and improved patients’ medication adherence, with an absolute decrease in the mean adherence score of 2.5 (95% CI = −2.8, −2.2, P < 0.001). There was no significant difference in readmission rates between the intervention and control groups. Conclusions Pharmacist-led medication reconciliation at discharge from Chinese county-level hospitals reduced medication discrepancies and improved patients’ adherence among patients aged 60 years or above, though no impact on readmission after discharge was observed. Registration ChiCTR2100045668.