OBJECTIVES: Drug-related problems (DRPs) affect the health outcomes of patients during the hospital stay. Clinical pharmacist-led interventions have a profound impact on medication safety and improving patient outcomes since their role is evolving. In Qatar, there is an opportunity for pharmacists to expand their role as patient safety leaders to prevent medication errors. This study aims to describe and classify the pharmacist-documented interventions among hospitalized patients in a cancer hospital in Qatar.

METHODS: A retrospective analysis of electronically reported clinical pharmacist interventions were performed. Data was extracted for 3 months period (March 1, 2018 - March 31, 2018, July 15, 2018 - August 15, 2018, and January 1, 2019 - January 31, 2019) which included patient-related information and intervention characteristics.

RESULTS: The overall acceptance rate of interventions were over 90%. A total of 281 patients with 1,354 interventions were included. The average age of the study participants was 47 years (SD± 17.36). The majority of the study population is females (n=154, 55%). The prevailing pharmacist intervention was “addition of a drug therapy” (22.5%), followed by “medication discontinuation” (21.2%) and “prophylactic agent addition” (12.9%). This pattern was similar across all subgroups (e.g. gender, age, ward) except for the urgent care unit, where “increase in medication dose” was the third highest frequently identified intervention (13.6%). The two pharmacological classes associated with the majority of interventions were anti-infective and fluid and electrolyte agents.

CONCLUSIONS: Clinical pharmacists can effectively identify, resolve and prevent medication-related problems among hospitalized patients. Future iterations could propose a study with a prospective design in nature in addition to assessing the quality of interventions with a quality indicator.