Title 7. PATIENT COUNSELING.pdf ✅

PHARMD GURU Page 1 Patient counseling is nothing but providing information to patients and their representatives regarding disease, drug therapy, and duration of therapy, side effects, and life style modifications. OUTCOMES OF PATIENT COUNSELING:  Patient recognizes the importance of their wellbeing.  It encourages the patient to establish a working relationship with a pharmacist & foundation for continual interaction and consultation.  Improves the coping strategies to deal with medication side effects and drug interactions.  Motivates the patient to take medicine for improvement of his/her health status.  The patient becomes an informed, efficient and active participant in disease treatment and self-care management.  Develops the ability in patient to take appropriate medication related decision concerning the compliance or adherence to their medication regimen. STAGES IN PATIENT COUNSELING: 1. Introduction. 2. Content. 3. Process. 4. Conclusion. 1) INTRODUCTION:  Review the patient record prior to counseling.  Conduct an appropriate patient counseling introduction by self and patient.  Explain the purpose of counseling session.  Obtain pertinent initial drug related information. E.g.: drug allergies, and other medications.  Warn the patient about taking other medications including OTC drugs, herbals, or botanical drugs and alcohol which could inhibit or interact into the prescribed medication.  Asses the patient understandings of reason for therapy.  Assess any actual or problems of importance to the patient. PATIENT COUNSELING
PHARMD GURU Page 2 2) CONTENTS:  Discuss the name and indication of the medication.  Explain the dosage regimen including duration of therapy when appropriate.  Assist the patient in developing a plan to incorporate the medication regimen into his/her daily routine.  Explain how long it will take for the drug to show its effect.  Discuss storage and refilling information.  Emphasize the benefits of completing the medication as prescribed.  Discuss the potential side effect.  Discuss how to prevent or manage the side effects of the drug.  Discuss the precautions.  Discuss the significant drug-drug, drug-food, and drug-disease interaction.  Explain precisely what to do if the patient misses the dose.  Explore the potential problems of the patient. 3) PROCESSES:  Use the language the patient can understand.  Use the appropriate counseling aids to support counseling.  Present the fact and order in a logical order.  Use open-ended question.  Use both verbal and non-verbal behavior. 4) CONCLUSION:  Verify the patient understanding via feedback.  Summaries by acknowledging or emphasizing key points of information.  Provide an opportunity for final concerns or questions.  Help the patient to plan, follow up and next consecutive steps. BARRIERS TO PATIENT COUNSELING: The barriers that come in the way of conducting patient counseling are: 1) Environment: a) A busy pharmacy b) Lack of privacy c) Noise
PHARMD GURU Page 3 d) Physical barrier 2) Patient factors: a) Physical disabilities b) Comprehensive difficulties c) Illiteracy 3. The pharmacist 4. Time ENVIRONMENT:  Community pharmacy, hospital OP pharmacy and hospital ward are all areas where pharmacist uses their communication skills in a professional capacity.  None of these areas are ideal but an awareness of the limitation of the environment goes part the way to resolving some of the problems. A BUSY PHARMACY:  This may create the impression there appears to be little time to discuss personnel matter with the patients.  The pharmacist is supervising number of difficult activities at the same time and is unable to devote his/her full attention to an individual matter.  It is important that pharmacist organize their patterns in such a way as to minimize their impression. LACK OF PRIVACY:  Both community and hospital outpatient departments have counseling rooms/ areas but may have not, many hospital wards could be linked to a busy thorough fare.  For good communication to be it is often necessary for the consultation to take place in a quite environment, free of interruptions.  The above mentioned condition in which pharmacist frequently work require additional skills to overcome the lack of ideal facilities. NOISE:  Noise levels within the working environment are an obvious barrier to good communication.
PHARMD GURU Page 4  People strain to hear what is said. Comprehension is made more difficult, particularly problem exist for hearing impaired patients. PHYSICAL BARRIERS:  The distance between people where communication occurs is significant.  Pharmacy counters and OP dispensing hatches are physical barriers. This in turn can create problems in developing effective communication. PATIENT FACTORS:  One of the main barriers to good communication in a pharmacy can be patient expectations.  In many cases, they have become used to seeing a good pharmacy as one where their prescription is dispensed quickly.  They are not expecting time t be spent with them for checking, understanding of medicines or health related matters.  Once the purpose of communication is explained most patients realize its importance. PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: Dealing with patients who have sight or hearing impairments will require the pharmacist to use additional communication skills. COMPREHENSIVE DIFFICULTIES:  Not all people come from the same educational background and care must be taken to assess patient’s level of understanding and choose appropriate language.  In many cases, the lack of ability to comprehend may be because English is not the patient’s first language.  Pharmacist working in areas where there is high proportion of non-English speakers may find it useful to stop / develop their own information leaflet in appropriate language. ILLITERACY:  High proportion of people in India is illiterate. Obviously for these patients any written materials will be meaningless. As well as, it is not always easy to identify illiterate patient because patient may feel ashamed and are unlikely to admit it.