The Impact of a Pharmacist-led Warfarin Educational Video in a Saudi Setting

Internationally, various warfarin education strategies have been described in the medical literature and delivered by a variety of health-care providers. However, none of these were tested in a Saudi setting.

The aim of this study was to assess the impact of pharmacist interventions via an educational video on improving patient knowledge of and satisfaction with warfarin therapy and the international normalized ratio (INR).

This study adopted a prospective pre- and posttest design and enrolled 91 patients from an anticoagulant clinic at King Khaled University Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, between September 2017 and February 2018.

All patients completed the Anticoagulation Knowledge Assessment (AKA) and Anti-Clot Treatment Satisfaction (ACTS) scales. Subsequently, the patients watched a 10-min educational video containing basic information regarding warfarin and were given relevant informative booklets. The patients were reassessed after a mean follow-up period of approximately 52 days.

In total, 85 patients completed the study. The impact of the intervention on patient knowledge was highly significant (mean difference = 17.7%, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 21.75-13.58, P < 0.000). In addition, the patients showed significant increases in their ACTS benefits subscale scores (mean difference = 0.73, 95% CI = 1.22-0.24, P = 0.004). Despite being long-term warfarin users, the patients' INRs had a greater tendency to be within the target range after the intervention (56.63% ± 35% vs. 64.72% ± 35% of the time; mean difference, 8.1 percentage points; effect size = 0.23). However, there was no significant effect on patients' perceptions of the warfarin burden.

This study provided evidence that a pharmacist-led audiovisual intervention via an educational video coupled with an informational booklet effectively improved patients' knowledge retention and satisfaction with warfarin therapy benefits. Longer studies are needed to determine the impact of this intervention on patients' perceptions of warfarin burdens and their INRs.