Pharmaceutical Care Models, Tools for Treating Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

The RhMAT is currently being used within a clinical setting. Results indicate that a pharmacist can implement this tool in an outpatient clinic setting, taking an average of 15 minutes to complete, to capture pharmaceutical care issues and pharmacotherapy gaps within the management of patients with RA. The RhMAT was implemented for use in a sample population of 78 patients with RA and run twice at approximately 12-month intervals. The total adherence rate achieved at baseline was 81.7%. This further increased to 85.2% at 12 months, giving a statistically significant rise (Wilcoxon signed rank test p value <0.05). Therefore, following the identification of gaps through the RhMAT at baseline, the pharmacist was able to clinically discuss these gaps, which resulted in improved adherence.

Conclusion

The innovative RhMAT is a tool that uses evidence-based guidelines specific for RA. The tool is practical for use in a clinical setting within a pharmaceutical care model. The major clinical contributions of the RhMAT are its ability to detect the degree of adherence of each individual patient’s pharmacotherapy plan to evidence-based guidelines and its ability to pinpoint the actual gaps leading to the degree of and identified non-adherence. Therefore, the RhMAT can be used to close off gaps and improve the quality-of-care service offered to patients, enhancing patient safety and quality of life.

Louise Grech, BPharm (Hons), MPhil, MRPharmS, is senior clinical pharmacist in the Clinical Pharmacy Practice Unit at Mater Dei Hospital and an assistant lecturer in the Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine & Surgery at the University of Malta.

Victor Ferrito, BSc, MSc, PhD, CSci, is a professor in the Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine & Surgery at the University of Malta.

Liberato Camilleri, BEd, MSc, PhD, is an associate professor and head of the Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Faculty of Science at the University of Malta.

Anthony Serracino Inglott, BPharm, PharmD, MRPharmS, is a professor in the Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine & Surgery, University of Malta.

Lilian M. Azzopardi, BPharm (Hons), MPhil, PhD, MRPharmS, is head of the Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine & Surgery at the University of Malta.

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