Evaluation of a Community Pharmacy–Based Screening Questionnaire to Identify Patients at Risk for Drug Therapy Problems

Study Objective To determine if a short screening questionnaire can identify patients at risk for drug therapy problems ( DTP s) in a community pharmacy setting. Design Self‐administered questionnaire. Setting Three community pharmacies in Saskatoon, Canada. Patients Forty‐nine adults who were picking up a refill prescription for a medication that had remained stable over the past 6 months (i.e., no changes to drug, dose, or regimen) during 4 consecutive weeks at each of the three pharmacies between November 2013 and February 2014. Measurements and Main Results All patients completed a self‐administered screening questionnaire and underwent a blinded comprehensive medication assessment with a clinical pharmacist. Agreement between the screening questionnaire responses and responses based on information from the medication assessment were assessed with Cohen's κ coefficient. The DTP s identified during the medication assessments were categorized in one of the eight standard DTP categories: unnecessary drug therapy, inappropriate drug, subtherapeutic dose, supratherapeutic dose, drug therapy required, adverse drug reaction, noncompliance, and other or unsure. The DTP s were also assigned a severity—mild, moderate, or severe—using adapted Schneider criteria. The number and severity of DTP s identified were compared among patients categorized as high versus low risk for DTP s as determined by the questionnaire responses. Of the 49 patients who completed the study, 18 (37%) were high risk and 31 (63%) low risk. The agreement between risk categorization based on the screening questionnaire and medication assessment was very good (κ = 0.91, p<0.01). Also, patients identified as high risk on the screening questionnaire had a mean of 3.7 (p<0.01) more DTP s than low‐risk patients. Seventeen (94%) of the 18 high‐risk patients had at least one moderate or severe DTP compared with 15 (48%) of the 31 low‐risk patients. Conclusion The screening questionnaire was a reliable method for identifying patients in community pharmacies who have a large number of DTP s.