Afia Tariq Butt1, Ayesha Feeroze2,
Iyad Naeem3, Sumaira Khadim4
How to cite this: Butt AT, Feeroze A, Naeem I, Khadim S. Evaluation of pharmacist’s interventions in a Hospital Pharmacy of a Secondary Care Centre of Aga Khan University Hospital. Pak J Med Sci. 2025;41(9):2580-2586. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.41.9.11700
Reprinted from Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences. 2025;41(9):2580-2586. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.41.9.11700
ABSTRACT
Objective: The current study aimed to investigate pharmacists’ intervention statistics in a secondary care setting in Pakistan.
Methodology: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted at a secondary care facility of Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan, analyzing in-patient and out-patient pharmacy records from June 2022 to June 2023.
Results: The study analyzed records of 10.9% (n=1340) male and female patients with a median age of six years (IQR: 23 years). Pharmacists intervened in 99.1% (n=1329) of prescriptions due to prescribing errors (PEs). The most common intervention was therapy optimization (e.g., therapeutic drug monitoring, incomplete prescriptions, wrong doses/frequencies, updating drug allergies, following culture/sensitivity results and monitoring electrolytes), accounting for 72.4% (n=970) of interventions, followed by route conversion at 19.6% (n=263). The overall acceptance rate of pharmacists’ interventions among physicians was 88.7% (n=1189).
Conclusion: PEs were common and pharmacists’ interventions were vital in preventing patient harm. PEs were more frequent among in-patients at risk of polypharmacy. Pharmacists optimized therapy across all age groups by adjusting doses, administration routes and applying restrictions. The study noted high acceptance of these interventions.
KEYWORDS: Prescribing error, Intervention, Secondary care.
