Aims: To
describe medication adherence education, practice, research and
policy efforts carried out by pharmacists in Spain in the last
decade.
Methods: A literature review using Medline and Embase was conducted
covering the last ten years. Additional pharmaceutical bibliographic
sources in Spain were consulted to retrieve articles of interest
from the last decade. Articles were included if a pharmacist was
involved and if medication adherence was measured or there was
any direct or indirect pharmacist intervention in monitoring and/or
improving adherence. Articles focusing on the development of tools
for adherence assessment were collected. Pre- and post-graduate
pharmacy training programs were also reviewed through the Spanish
Ministry of Education and Science website. Information regarding
policy issues was gathered from the Spanish and Autonomous Communities
of Education and Health Ministries websites.
Results: Pharmacists receive no specific training focused on adherence.
There is no specific government policies for pharmacists in Spain
related to medication adherence regardless of their practice setting.
A total of 24 research studies met our inclusion criteria. Of
these, 10 involved pharmacist intervention in monitoring and/or
improving adherence and 14 assessed only adherence. Ten studies
involved hospital pharmacists working in collaboration with another
healthcare professional.
Conclusions: At present in Spain, the investigative role of the
pharmacist is not well developed in the area of medication adherence.
Adherence improvement services provided to patients by pharmacists
are not implemented in a systematic way. However, recent efforts
to implement new initiatives in this area may provide the basis
for offering new cognitive services aimed at improving patient
adherence in the near future.
