Guiding pharmacist clinical interviews: a safety tool to support the education of patients treated with oral antineoplastic agents

ABSTRACT

Objective: Oral antineoplastic agents (OAA) lead to new challenges in patient education, monitoring, medication errors, drug interactions, adverse events management, and adherence. The aim is to develop a structured guide supporting pharmacist interviews and onco-hematologic outpatients’ education process and to identify the key points that a pharmacist should address in order to increase OAA safety and efficacy.

Methods: A literature review was performed and the recommended standards associated with OAA approved by ASCO and MASCC were analyzed. Additionally, a multidisciplinary team was formed to address the key points associated with OAA in clinical practice and to create a useful clinical guide.

Results: The multidisciplinary team defined the safety and efficacy key points during patient education and issued recommendations regarding the following items: dose, drug administration, interactions, adverse events, adherence, literacy, quality of life, storage, and handling. A guide was created as a check-list in support of the pharmacist clinical interview. Implications for clinical practice, including adverse events management, drug interactions management, and interventions on adherence were added.

Conclusion: This article provides a consensus set of safety recommendations regarding OAA in clinical practice and a well-researched easily implementable support guide to standardize and guarantee quality pharmaceutical care of onco-hematologic outpatients.

KEYWORDS:

• Drug safety
• outpatient
• oral chemotherapy
• patient education
• pharmaceutical care

Declaration of Interest

The author has no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.