Evaluation of pharmaceutical counseling after hospital discharge of post-surgery patients

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate pharmaceutical counseling following hospital discharge. All subjects received pharmacist counseling before discharge in a private hospital in Aracaju-SE, Brazil, from October 2007 to February 2008. Medication adherence was measured by Haynes-Sacket and Morisky-Green-Levine scales at the end of post-discharge treatment. Post-surgery patients (n = 243) received counseling on the day of hospital discharge, while adherence was observed in 186 (76.5 %) of these patients. During the four months, the increase in adherence was observed in those patients that received the counseling: 68.7 %, 73.6 %, 82.9 % and 85.7 %, respectively. The patients were distributed according to the variables of age, chronic illness, and duration of treatment did not significantly vary during the study. At the end of pharmaceutical counseling period, more than three fourths of post-surgery patients were considered adherent after hospital discharge. This result indicates a potential opportunity to implement this service in other wards.