Hospital pharmacists' beliefs about optimising statin therapy in older inpatients

Abstract

This study explored hospital pharmacists' perspectives about optimising statin therapy in older inpatients in Australia. An anonymous questionnaire using standardised questions in the form of five-point Likert scales to capture pharmacists' attitudes toward their role in statin optimisation, compliance of statin therapy with existing guidelines, knowledge of statin-related side effects and clinical recommendations such as starting and ceasing or deprescribing therapy, was administered. A total of 108 hospital pharmacists across Australia completed the questionnaire. Over 90% of hospital pharmacists agreed that they had an important role in managing statin therapy in older inpatients (95% CI: 90.5-98.8%). Less than 40% agreed that statin therapy in older adults was prescribed in accordance with Australian clinical guidelines (95% CI: 27.4-47.6%), and over 90% agreed that there was a need for statin deprescribing guidelines for older adults (95% CI: 85.7-97.6%). Hospital pharmacists believe that they have an important role in optimising statin therapy.

Methods in pharmacy practice research – using the palette ingeniously

“…Questionnaires using regular knowledge and attitude questions are of course still of interest in their own right and it is of interest to see how the issue of deprescribing is becoming high on the agenda of pharmacists in one such ‘regular’ questionnaire study. The study reported by Wu et al . shows that the surveyed pharmacists are ready to take on a role of managing statin therapy in elderly patients and feel there is room for deprescribing of these drugs for some patients.…”