RPS Conference 2010, Abstracts 2010 - Royal Pharmaceutical Society

alternative therapies such as Ginger and Tumeric. Patients reinforced the concept of “Blind
Belief” and did not recognize the pharmaceutical care role of pharmacists. Table 1 shows
patients’ satisfaction levels with medication information using the SIMS tool.
Table 1 showing scores from the SIMS tool 3
Site Medication usage (9
items)
Potential problems (8
items)
Overall satisfaction (17
items)
Cohort 1 4.17+1.9 1.83+1.1 6+2.6
Cohort 2 5.59+2.15 4+5.65 9.6+3.78
Cohort 3 5.8+3.1 3.2+2.4 9.2+3.2
Cohort 4 5.3+2.8 3.6+2.2 8.9+4.3
Conclusions
The study has endorsed the findings of the previous study conducted in a small number of
patients with Diabetes, Cardiovascular and Respiratory diseases 1 . Patients of South Asian
origin had limited understanding of their medicines, identifying a lack of regular monitoring or
review. Pharmacists should be commissioned to provide enhanced services in areas of health
inequalities. In particular they should provide targeted pharmaceutical care to such community
groups.
References
1. Sidi A, Oppal S, Malik M, Kostrzewski A and Dhillon S. Medicine related problems in chronic disease:
implications for reducing health inequalities IJPP 2009; 17 (2): 28B-34B.
2. Gordon. K, Smith. F, and Dhillon, S. The development and validation of a screening tool for the
identification of patients experiencing medication-related problems. IJPP 2005; 13: 187-193.
3. Horne. R, Hankins. M, and Jenkins, R. The satisfaction with information about medicines scales:
(SIMS) a new measurement tool for audit and research. Qual Saf Health Care 2001; 10: 135-140.