Impact of pharmacist counseling on medication knowledge and compliance

The impact of discharge counseling was measured in a veteran patient population in a large tertiary-care government medical center. Upon discharge, seventy patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups: one group received verbal medication counseling from a pharmacist, the other group did not. Medication knowledge and compliance were assessed by interviewing each patient approximately 6 weeks after discharge. Sixty patients (31 counseled, 29 uncounseled) completed the study. Forty-five patients were from our rehabilitation division (housing psychiatric, intermediate, and long-term care patients), and 15 patients were from our acute-care division. Overall, counseled patients were no more knowledgeable or compliant than uncounseled patients. However, among those patients discharged from our acute-care division, counseled patients were more knowledgeable and compliant than uncounseled patients. In all patients, medication knowledge and compliance decreased as their number of medications increased. Our discharge counseling program had little impact when examining all study patients. But in acute-care patients, discharge counseling did increase both medication knowledge and compliance. Our study also showed that, in both counseled and uncounseled patients, medication knowledge and compliance decreased as the number of discharge medications increased, and additional pharmacist counseling would likely prove beneficial to those patients discharged on multiple medications.