A Clinical Trial to Investigate the role of Clinical Pharmacist in Resolving/Preventing Drug Related Problems in ICU Patients Who Receive Anti-infective Therapy

To highlight the role of the clinical pharmacist in resolving/preventing drug related problems and to measure the acceptance of the pharmaceutical care plan for patients who receive anti-infective therapy in the intensive care unit.Two groups of patients were randomly selected from general intensive care unit ward of the King Hussein Medical Center, Royal Medical Services, Amman, Jordan ; Intervention group, n=52 and control group, n=50. The intervention group received complete pharmaceutical care services. Consult notes were written to identify drug related problems according to a pharmacy care plan. Clinical pharmacist’s recommendations for the intervention group were submitted to and discussed with physicians. Acceptance rate of the recommendations was thenmeasured. A total of 251drug related problem were identified for both groups. For the intervention group, the physicians’ acceptance rate of the submitted recommendations was very high (around 98%). Clinical pharmacist plays a key role as member of multidisciplinary team as he is able to assess the patient’s medication treatment from different aspects during intensive care unit stay; consequently, physicians are increasingly accepting the clinical pharmacist recommendations regarding drug related problems for patients in intensive care unit.