A newly published Cochrane review has found that non-medical prescribers such as pharmacists and nurses are capable of undertaking disease management roles, in both primary and secondary care settings.
Greg Weeks and Johnson George from the Monash University Centre for Medicine Use and Safey within the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences along with Katie Maclure and Derek Stewart of the Robert Gordon University School of Pharmacy in Aberdeen, UK collaborated on the review which looked at improved access to medicines via prescribing by non-medical health professionals.
The review of 46 studies included 26 involving nurse prescribers and 20 with pharmacist prescribers, with a total of 37,338 participants.
Patients were generally satisfied with non-medical prescriber care, while there was little difference in medication adherence across the various studies examined.
"The findings suggest that non-medical prescribers, practising with varying but high levels of prescribing autonomy, in a range of settings, were as effective as usual care medical prescribers," the authors concluded.
"Non-medical prescribers can deliver comparable outcomes for systolic blood pressure, glycated haemoglobin, low-density lipoprotein, medication adherence, patient satisfaction, and health-related quality of life," they added.
CLICK HERE to view the review.
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