Danyah has completed her PGY1 at the age of 28 years at King Abdulaziz Medical City, Jeddah. She is an intyernal medicine clinical pharmacist at King Fahad Armed Forces Hospital, Jeddah.
Abstract
Kidney-transplant recipients have complex medication regimens due to chronic comorbidities, in addition to immunosuppressive medications leading to serious medication-related problems (MRPs). 1 Pharmacists play crucial role in identifying and assessing MRPs, providing education, monitoring and suggesting alternative medications. Studies reported that clinical-pharmacists joining renal-transplant clinics have potential impact on patients’ outcomes. 2,3 There is a paucity of data on prevalence of MRPs in kidney-transplant patients at King-Abdulaziz medical city, Jeddah. Therefore, the study aims to determine the prevalence and types of MRPs in kidney-transplant recipients at the outpatient clinics. Secondary objectives include identifying the pharmacological classes of medications contributed to the MRPs, the categories of MRPs and the predictors of MRPs. Methods: Retrospective cross-sectional, electronic health records review. Data were collected from June 2016 until June 2017. Inclusion criteria: patients above 18 years, receiving maintenance immunosuppressants and at least 3 months post-transplant. MRPs include: Drug-drug interactions, ADR, improper dosing, medications without clear indication, indication with no medication and Duplication. A sample of 80 patients was estimated to detect prevalence of 31%of one MRP at least per patient with 95%confidence interval, 5%precision, an alpha of 0.05. Results and conclusion: Screened patients were129. The mean age was 50±15.75, 66.3% were males. Most common comorbidities were hypertension(62%) and diabetes(42.5%). The prevalence of MRPs was 28.97% in 1393 medication orders reviewed. The most frequent MRP types were drug-drug interactions(46.1%) and duplications(16.7%), Most common medications involved were Immunosuppressive and cardiac-medications. Most significant predictors for developing >3MRPs were: number of medications and duration post kidney-transplant.