Objective To evaluate the effects of a clinical pharmacist service on health-related quality of life (HRQL) and prescribing of drugs.

Methods A randomised controlled study was performed in two internal medicine wards. The intervention consisted of medication reviews with feedback to the physicians, drug treatment discussion with patients at discharge and medication reports. HRQL was evaluated at inclusion and after six months by self-rated global health (1: very poor; 5: very good) and by the EuroQol 5-dimension questionnaire (EQ-5D). Prescribing of drugs was analysed regarding three established drug-specific quality indicators (intervention and control patients) and potential drug-related problems (DRPs) during in-hospital care (intervention patients).

Results 345 patients (61% female; median age: 82) were analysed, 204 of whom (59%) completed the six-month HRQL follow-up. A total of 87 patients (53% of the intervention patients) received all parts of the intervention. Intention-to-treat analysis revealed no significant findings for any of the HRQL measures. Per-protocol analysis revealed significantly better HRQL in the intervention group at six-month follow-up as measured by global health (mean: 3.14 (SD: 0.87) vs 2.77 (0.94), p=0.020), but not as measured by summarised EQ-5D index (0.48 (0.36) vs 0.43 (0.37), p=0.57). The number of potentially inappropriate prescribings per patient according to the quality indicators (admission vs discharge) was 0.35 (0.73) versus 0.38 (0.72), p=0.47 (control patients), and 0.39 (0.83) versus 0.26 (0.56), p=0.039 (intervention patients who received the intervention). In the intervention group, 133 relevant potential DRPs were identified in 81 patients, 55 of which (41%) were acted upon by the attending physician.

Conclusion A clinical pharmacist service during inpatient care may improve quality of prescribing and patients' HRQL.

Trial registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01016301.