경기도 방문약료 사업에 대한 다년간 성과 분석 연구

Analysis of the Achievements of the Pharmacist Home-visit Service in Gyeonggi-do

BACKGROUND We evaluated the effectiveness of a pharmacist home-visit service by analyzing changes in medication adherence and general medication knowledge among polypharmacy users. METHODS The pharmacist’s home-visit service was conducted from 2017 to 2019, targeting the medical aid population with chronic diseases taking polypharmacy who wanted to participate in this service. Pharmacists conducted a minimum of two face-to-face education and counseling sessions. Medication adherence was measured using the Morisky scale, and the effects of home visit education and counseling were assessed by comparing medication adherence and general medication knowledge between initial and final consultations using the McNemar test. Adverse event occurrence was also compared. RESULTS 1194 patients participated in the study over three years, with 534 patients included in the analysis after excluding those with missing data in the outcome variables. The medication adherence rate to the question “Do you ever forget to take your medicine?” significantly increased from 51.3% before pharmacist education and counseling to 73.6% thereafter (p<0.05). The item assessing knowledge about discarding expired medication significantly increased from 40.3% to 83.3% (p<0.05). The average number of adverse events significantly decreased by approximately 0.50 incidents (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS The study findings indicate that pharmacist-led home visit services can effectively improve medication adherence and knowledge and reduce adverse events among polypharmacy users. Emphasizing the importance of pharmacist-led services in promoting proper medication use, future healthcare policies should consider providing professional guidance and continuous medication management to polypharmacy users.