The Effectiveness of Counseling Using Preventative Informational Sheets with Climate and Environmental Data from Insurance Pharmacies in Preventing Worsened Asthma Symptoms

Abstract

We investigated the possibility that having pharmacists give asthma patients informational sheets on climate and environmental changes at insurance pharmacies during patient counseling might prevent the worsening of asthma symptoms. Patients with hyperlipidemia were comparative subjects. We created informational sheets about climate and environmental changes and their in‰uence on asthma. During patient counseling, pharmacists gave them to all asthma patients who visited insurance pharmacies over a period of 2 months, between November and December 2017. Based on previous studies, we called days which showed certain climate or environmental changes as compared to the previous daỳ`c hange days''. We compared the number of visiting patients on change days after preventative information was provided (between January and March 2018) with the number before information was provided (between January and March 2017). In addition, we compared those numbers with the number of patients who visited the target pharmacies between January and March 2016 in order to examine the in‰uence of yearly climate change. The same procedure was used with hyperlipidemic patients. The number of visiting asthma patients after information was provided signiˆcantly decreased (5.1 ± 2.1, p ＝ 0.03) compared with the number before information was provided, between January and March 2017 (6.1 ± 2.8). The number of aforementioned visits compared to those between January and March 2016 also signiˆcantly decreased (p ＝ 0.01). Our results suggest that preventative information about climate and environmental changes provided by pharmacists during patient counseling might in‰uence the number of asthma patient visits and prevent the exacerbation of their symptoms.