Methods
Ethics statement
This study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of
Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science
and Technology (IRB Number: 104). Since this study was merely a
retrospective review of the routine service that was put in place and
data were gathered from existing documents based on routine work.
Personal information was protected in the aggregated data.
Patients
A retro-prospective study was performed on the patients who were
diagnosed of COVID-19 and received pharmaceutical care services at the
Jianghan Fangcang Hospital, from February 5th, 2020 to
March 10th, 2020. Patients who refused to fill in
questionnaires and receive pharmaceutical care were not included in this
study. The sample size was determined to be 349 patients.
Pharmaceutical care service
Besides the supplement of therapeutic drugs, clinical pharmacists also
played important role for serving pharmaceutical care. Clinical
pharmacist team explored the online pharmaceutical care service mode
according to the special condition of the Fangcang hospitals, and
provided remote pharmaceutical care services to patients, online
pharmaceutical consultation and non-contact services mainly implement
through WeChat® , so as to ensure one-on-one
communication with the patients and solve their medication problems
timely and effectively. Our pharmaceutical care plan including:
(1) A series of ”Rational Drug Use” science broadcasting programs were
opened to introduce the common medical knowledge to patients, including
medical instructions, drug usage, drug interactions and adverse drug
reactions. The programs cover various aspects of treatment, including
antiviral agents, antibacterial agents, traditional Chinese medicines,
nutritious diet, post-discharge management, emotional regulation, etc.
(2)The WeChat® ID of ”clinical pharmacist in the
Fangcang hospital” was established and actively publicized, so that
patients in need of help could voluntarily contact clinical pharmacists
by WeChat®, and fill in the ”self-reported
questionnaire ”. Thus, the basic information about initial symptoms of
COVID-19, basic comorbidities and their medication could be obtained by
online consultation.
(3)Joined COVID-19 patients were required to acquire the first
pharmaceutical care and follow-up visit within 24h of the next day,
ensuring that all patients could timely obtain service.
(4)Clinical pharmacists were assigned to patients according to their
disease conditions. WeChat® is used to provide 24-hour
online ”one-to-one” pharmaceutical care, including providing
indications, dosage, adverse drug reactions.
(5)Patients received follow-up visit after discharge to monitor their
physical condition.
The inpatients’ questionnaire survey items
Each item was independently created by the clinical pharmacists taking
into consideration of usual pharmaceutical care. The survey included
patient basic information, initial symptoms of COVID-19, patient’s
mental state, comorbidities, the medications including antivirals,
antibiotics and other drugs, adverse drug reactions and so on. The
questionnaire was administered to the patients before they received
clinical pharmacist on-line service. Patients refused to service were
excluded from this study.
Usefulness of the online pharmaceutical care service
Between February 5th and March 10th2020, the discharged patients’ questionnaire was administered to 78
patients who received pharmaceutical care service at the Jianghan
Fangcang Hospital. The survey included the days for antiviral and
antibiotic therapy, the usefulness of pharmacist care service on
patients’ rational medication and mental situations, the satisfaction
with clinical pharmacist service. Patients who did not received
pharmacist service were excluded.