Pharmacist Follow-up, a Qualitative Study of Patient Experience

A pharmacist follow-up procedure is under development. Patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) is being followed up by a pharmacist for one year with three meetings; at discharge from hospital, after three months and after one year. The evaluation is basically based on quantitative measures as achievement of therapeutic goals, number of drug related problems detected, hospitalisations etc. However, the patients' own experience with the follow-up procedure cannot be evaluated using these measures. Thus, a qualitative approach is needed. In this study, a total of four patients participating in the follow-up will be included and interviewed. A semistructured interview guide will be used. Interviews will be taped, transcribed and analyzed with the intention to explore how patients experience the follow-up from the pharmacist. A thoruough content analysis will be performed. Patients included must have met the pharmacist at least twice. The pharmacist in charge of the follow-up will recruit patients and hand out study information. Patients will reply to the principal investigator of the study and thus kept anonymous for the pharmacist in charge of the follow-up. No pressure will be put on the patients to join, but it will be emphasized that it will help evaluating the procedure.