OBJECTIVES

We conducted a cohort study to evaluate the effectiveness of clinical pharmacists’ consultation (CPC) in infectious diseases (ID) treatment and explore potential factors associated with patient outcome.

METHODS

Based on the registry database, a prospective cohort study was conducted in Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital from April to December 2017. The main exposure factor was whether clinician adopted the suggestion from clinical pharmacist. Outcome was effective response rate (ERR) of ID patients. The variables associated with the outcome were also prospectively collected and recorded. Multilevel model was performed to analyze the factors related to ERR.

RESULTS

A total of 733 ID inpatients from April 2017 to December 2017 were included. The proportion of clinical pharmacists’ suggestions adopted by clinicians and ERR were 88.13% and 69.03%, respectively. There was significant data aggregation (P<0.05) for individuals at the level of department. According to the two-level variance component model, liver dysfunction (OR=0.649, 95%CI: 0.432~0.976), severity of infection (OR=0.602, 95%CI: 0.464~0.781), and adopting the suggestion from pharmacist (OR=1.738, 95%CI: 1.028~2.940) had significant association with ERR.

CONCLUSIONS

Adopting the suggestion from clinical pharmacists could improve the prognosis of serious ID patients with liver dysfunction, the outcomes of who are usually poor. Our study suggests that CPC could benefit ID treatment.