Effectiveness of Pharmaceutical Care in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Elderly at Kamrieng Primary Care Unit, Maha Sarakham

Abstract

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a major health problem of the elderly in Thailand. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of pharmaceutical care in elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) in Kamriang primary care unit (PCU), Maha Sarakham province. A one group pretest-posttest design study was conducted to compare knowledge and health behavior, fasting blood sugar level and the numbers of drug related problems (DRPs) before and after the provision of pharmaceutical care (e.g. DM education, self-care management) by a PharmD student. The data was collected by interviewing 30 elderly volunteers, who were included by a simple random sampling technique between 5^th January and 28^th February, 2008. The results showed that the participants were 8 men and 22 women with mean±SD age of 67.20±5.52 and a 1-5 year history of diabetes mellitus. After receiving interventions, patients had significantly increased knowledge (p < 0.01) and self-care management scores (p=0.02). Patients’ fasting blood glucose levels showed a significantly decrease (p < 0.01). In terms of drug related problems, these decreased from 8 to 5 after the intervention. In conclusion, this study demonstrated the effectiveness of pharmaceutical care on the improvement of knowledge, behavior, and blood sugar level in DM patients particularly the elderly.