Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Review Article | OPEN ACCESS

Insight into improving antidepressant adherence and symptoms by pharmacist intervention: A review

Mohammed Hassen¹, Yibing Li² , Xinyue Yang², Umeorah Ernest³

¹Department of Social and Management Pharmacy, International Pharmaceutical Business School, China Pharmaceutical University, 639 Longmian Avenue, Jiangning District, Nanjing 211198; ²Department of Social and Management Pharmacy; ³Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Togjia Lane, Gulou District, Nanjing 210009, China.

For correspondence:- Yibing Li Email: Zgykdxlyb@sina.com Tel:+8613347737072

Accepted: 15 January 2019 Published: 28 February 2019

Citation: Hassen M, Li Y, Yang X, Ernest U. Insight into improving antidepressant adherence and symptoms by pharmacist intervention: A review. Trop J Pharm Res 2019; 18(2):435-443 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v18i2.31

© 2019 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the effectiveness of antidepressant medication adherence-improving intervention by a pharmacist and its impact on clinical symptoms of depression among outdoor depressive patients.

Methods: Various databases such as PubMed, Embase, and Scopus were used sources for the literature published during the last 20 years. Pharmacist intervention studies involving adult depressed patients (≥ 17 years old) and treated with antidepressants were included. Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria.

Results: These studies depicted various levels of interventions in which pharmacist counseled and educated the patients to support medication adherence. In only one of the studies, pharmacist intervention exercised significant effect on the depression features of patients.

Conclusion: The findings suggest that the implication of antidepressant medication adherence-improving intervention by pharmacist leads to the improved adherence of adult depressive patients to antidepressants. However, pharmacist intervention did not show any significant influence on depression symptomology, necessitating further studies on the topic.

Keywords: Pharmacist care, Depression, Antidepressants, Intervention, Medication adherence