Do you think that the pharmacist’s role ends with dispensing medicine? It cannot be denied that dispensing medication accurately and quickly is crucial to a pharmacy, but also the importance of the pharmacist’s role in ensuring that the patient understands the treatment cannot be ignored. Patient counseling has been shown to have a significant impact on improving the patient’s commitment to taking the medication, according to some studies.

What is patient counseling?

Patient counseling is a pharmaceutical care service that aims to improve a patient’s use of medication and involves the transfer of information from the pharmacist to the patient or caregiver to ensure the proper use of medications or devices, prevent complications, and maintain their health.

Patient counseling includes many services!

• Medication counseling: This includes providing information about drug doses, drug interactions, and side effects. This service is especially important for patients with chronic diseases who take many medications.
• Lifestyle counseling: This involves providing lifestyle advice that can improve overall health outcomes. For example, recommendations on diet and exercise, smoking cessation counseling, and alcohol and drug abuse counseling.
• Disease Management Consulting: Educating patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and asthma. To understand their condition and help manage their lives.

Why it’s important?

Medicines play a crucial role in medical care and community health. It also increases awareness of medication use, helps adherence to treatment, improves outcomes, and prevents many problems. Patient counseling helps:

• Provide vital information, advice, and assistance.
• The patients take their medications and making sure they take them correctly
• Knowing basic information about the disease and healthy lifestyle.
• Advise the patient whether medications should be taken with or without food, at bedtime or in the morning, with water, juice, or milk.

Therefore, it is imperative to deal with a pharmacist who guides the patient well, especially since adherence to treatment plays a role and has many benefits, such as:

• Increase the effectiveness of treatment.
• Achieving the highest possible treatment results.
• Non-compliance with medications leads to higher healthcare costs, longer hospitalization times, and higher morbidity and mortality rates.

All this information leads to the correct dosage of medication and the most effective treatment procedure.

Al thiqa Pharmacies offer a range of services to improve patient outcomes. One of these services is counseling, which includes patient education and counseling about their medications, health conditions, and healthy lifestyle choices.