International Journal of Development and Sustainability (Dec 2012)
Impact of pharmaceutical care interventions on the CD4+ lymphocytes counts (therapeutic outcome) of patients on antiretroviral drugs
Abstract
CD4 count and viral load determine the progression of HIV infection. HIV actively infects and destroys CD4 cells. High viral load results in higher transmission risk and is also a sign of more severe disease. Measurements of CD4 counts can be used as an indirect means of estimating HIV viral load and as such determine disease progression and/or therapeutic outcome of antiretroviral therapy. Pharmaceutical care (PC) has been shown to improve the outcome of drug therapy in many disease conditions. HIV/AIDS is one of the disease conditions that are fraught with many problems that can benefit from this new emphasis of pharmacy practice also known as ‘pharmacists care’. This study is designed to evaluate the impact of pharmaceutical care activities on the CD4 cell counts of HIV/AIDS patients receiving antiretroviral drugs. The components of the American society of health-system pharmacists (ASHP) guidelines on ‘standardized method for pharmaceutical care’ was used as a data collection instrument to evaluate, document and intervene and re-evaluate the antiretroviral therapy of about one thousand four hundred and seventy three (1,473) patients. The results showed that that 55.2% of the patients recorded significant increases in their CD4 cells count, 14.1% of them maintained their pre - intervention CD4 cells count while 10.3% of them recorded decreases in their CD4 cell count. However, in 20.4% of the patients the CD4 cell counts could not be determined. The study showed that pharmacists’ interventions in antiretroviral drug therapy through Pharmaceutical care can significantly improve the CD4 cells counts of patients receiving antiretroviral drugs hence therapeutic outcome of antiretroviral drug therapy.
