Impact of Clinical Pharmacist Interventions in Vitamin K Antagonists Management at One Teaching Hospital in Vietnam

The study is a randomized controlled trial. Patients who will use VKA are prospectively divided into routine group and pharmacist intervention group.

For the intervention group, patients receive an intensive medical education from pharmacists in anticoagulation management service. Pharmacists regularly provide telephone and outpatient follow-up. At the end of the 12-month follow-up, the percentage of TTR and major bleeding events will be evaluated in both groups.

Clinical data is designed to be collected from 800 patients, 400 patients in each group. Data will be analyzed by SPSS 20.0 software. P < 0.05 is considered significant.

• Patient education and compliance (Other): When the patient is enrolled in the intervention group, pharmacists provide medical education about the pathophysiology, medications, lifestyle, how to prevent, recognize and take care of bleeding events, etc. Establish a medical record for every follow-up examination and remind follow-ups by message, phone every month.

Primary outcomes

• Time in the therapeutic range (TTR) [12 months]: The time in the therapeutic range (TTR) has been used as a measure of warfarin therapy quality. The percentage of TTR is the percentage of the number of patient's INR achieved therapeutic range on the total number of patient's INR test in the 12-month follow-up of each patient.
• Bleeding events [12 months]: Major bleeding is considered to be those events that resulted in death or the need for acute medical or surgical intervention, also as defined by previously described criteria. Minor bleeding includes increased bruising on the skin and other bleeding episodes not meeting the criteria for major bleeding.

Sex: All, ages: 18 Years to 90 Years

Inclusion Criteria:

* Patients received a discharge prescription with VKA therapy from November 2018
* Patients agree to participate in the study
* Age 18 and older
* Duration of VKA therapy ≥12 months

Exclusion Criteria:

* Patients with cognitive impairment as diagnosed by physician
* Geographical and financial conditions do not allow patients to guarantee follow-up examination on schedule
* Patient has less than 3 INR test results after the first day participating in the study
* Cannot contact patient by phone call or face-to-face communication after the first day participating in the study

• Trang Dang, PhD, Study chair, University Medical Center Ho Chi Minh City