SummaryWhat is known and objective: With the increasing prevalence of diabetes, the physician-centred model is challenged to deliver holistic care in Asia. Diabetes may be managed effectively within a multidisciplinary collaborative care model; however, evidence on its effectiveness in Asian patients is lacking. Therefore, the primary objective was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of multidisciplinary collaborative care vs physician-centred care in diabetes. The secondary objectives were to evaluate humanistic and economic outcomes among the two types of care.Methods: This 6-month prospective, open-label, parallel-arm, randomized, controlled study was conducted at four outpatient healthcare institutions. High-risk patients aged ≥21 years with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes, polypharmacy and comorbidities were included. Patients with type 1 diabetes or those who were unable to communicate independently were excluded. The control arm received usual care with referrals to nurses and dietitians as needed. The intervention arm (multidisciplinary collaborative care) was followed up with pharmacists regularly, in addition to receiving the usual care. The primary outcomes included HbA1c, systolic blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein and triglycerides. The secondary outcomes included scores from the Problem Areas in Diabetes (PAID) and the Diabetes Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaires (DTSQ), and diabetes-related health service utilization rates and costs.Results and discussion: Of 411 eligible patients, 214 and 197 patients were randomized into the intervention and control arms, respectively. At 6 months, 141 patients in the intervention arm (65.9%) and 189 patients in the control arm (95.9%) completed the study. Mean HbA1c reduced from 8.6%±1.5% at baseline to 8.1%±1.3% at 6 months in the intervention arm (P=.04), with up to mean HbA1c improvement of 0.8% in patients with greater levels of uncontrolled glycemia. Whereas the mean HbA1c in the control arm remained unchanged (8.5%±1.4%) throughout the 6-month period. Improvements in PAID and DTSQ scores, reduction in physician workload and an average cost savings of US$91.01 per patient were observed in the intervention arm over 6 months.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

This study suggests that prescribers' knowledge of potential clinically significant DDIs is generally poor. These findings are supported by other research and emphasize the need to develop systems that alert prescribers about potential interactions that are clinically relevant. Physicians most commonly reported learning about potential DDIs from pharmacists, suggesting further work is needed to improve the drug-prescribing process to identify potential safety issues earlier in the medication use process.

Patients with diabetes in primary-care settings frequently reported problems with pain/discomfort and restrictions in diet. Poorer health-related quality of life was found to be associated with higher HbA(1c) values. The chronicity of diabetes and insulin therapy may have a negative impact on patients' diabetes-related health-related quality of life. This study indicates the importance of achieving better disease management to improve the health-related quality of life of patients with diabetes.

Insulin refusal is an important problem amongst our patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus. Findings of this study suggest that interventions aimed at increasing insulin therapy use should focus on injection-related concerns, perceived lifestyle adaptations and correction of misconceptions. Different interventions may also be required for patients of different educational groups.

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Pharmacist-managed services had a positive return in terms of economic viability. With the expanding role of pharmacists in the healthcare sector, alongside increasing health expenditure, future economic studies of high quality are needed to investigate the cost-effectiveness of these services.

There is no patient-reported medication adherence measure that has been validated in Singapore. This study aimed to validate the 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS) in patients taking warfarin in Singapore. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a convenience sample of 151 patients taking warfarin at an anticoagulation clinic in 2011. Respondents completed the MMAS in English or Chinese depending on their preference. The MMAS had a Cronbach's alpha of 0.56 and good criterion-related validity as the scale scores were associated with warfarin refill rates (p = 0.04). Respondents with higher MMAS scores were found to have a higher percentage of International Normalised Ratios (INRs) within the therapeutic range (p = 0.01), higher adherence to diet recommendations (p = 0.02), and less perceived difficulty in taking all medications (p < 0.001); they were also more likely to take warfarin at the same time every day (p < 0.001). Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the eight items loaded onto one factor (RMSEA = 0.03). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the MMAS for identifying patients with poor INR control were 73.0%, 35.6%, 49.5% and 60.5%, respectively, using the time in the therapeutic INR range as the gold standard. This study shows that the 8-item MMAS has good validity and moderate reliability in patients taking warfarin. Future research is needed to investigate the scale's psychometric properties in other patient populations and clinical settings.