The Effect of Health Education by Pharmacists on 10-Year Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk: A Cluster-Randomized Control Study in a Low Socioeconomic Status Javanese Population.

BACKGROUND: Evidence from previous studies demonstrates that lifestyle modification reduces the incidence and complications of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The study aimed to investigate the effect of a lifestyle intervention provided by pharmacists on the 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk and quality of life (QoL) in a low socioeconomic status Javanese population. METHODS: This research was a cluster-randomized controlled study of 1-year duration, conducted in a lower social economic community in the Sleman District of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The eligible subjects were dichotomized into 2 groups: 40 to 55 years (n = 61 vs 65) and 56 to 70 years (n = 21 vs 43) for intervention and control subjects, respectively. The ASCVD score and risk factors within the age-based groups were analyzed using T test/Mann-Whitney test for continuous data or chi-square test for categorical data. RESULTS: The intervention and control subjects had similar baseline characteristics ( P > .05), including the ASCVD risk with the low- and high-risk classification for younger and elder subjects, respectively. At final follow-up, the younger intervention subjects had lower 10-year ASCVD risk ( P = .001), higher high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ( P = .02), smoking status ( P = .001), persistence rate ( P = .03), and QoL value for the physical and social function domains ( P < .05) than the control subjects, whereas the elder intervention subjects only had better ASCVD risk score than controls ( P = .03). Smoking interacting with intervention was the most influential variable on ASCVD risk in logistic regression analysis. CONCLUSION: The study demonstrates that the health education by the pharmacists produce significant outcomes of the ASCVD risk, smoking status, and QoL of physical and social function particularly in the younger group.

Pharmacists' views on the development of asthma pharmaceutical care model in Indonesia: A needs analysis study.

BACKGROUND: Over recent years the pharmacy profession in Indonesia has adopted a stance of pharmaceutical care to expand their scope of practice. Asthma management presents a key opportunity for pharmacists to test expanded roles in health service provision. There is however no exploratory work on the willingness, experience or future practice needs of Indonesian pharmacists in the realm of specialised asthma service provision. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were to explore Indonesian pharmacists' experiences, perspectives, and needs regarding the provision of pharmaceutical care for asthma patients in Indonesia. METHODS: The study utilised conventional qualitative content analyses with two stages, i.e.: deductive analyses and inductive concept development. Data were collected using Focus Group Discussion (FGD) Method. FGDs were conducted using a topic guide and by facilitators trained in FGD conduct. FGDs were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim prior to analysis. A maximum variation sampling methods targeted pharmacist across various settings of practice within Yogyakarta Indonesia. RESULTS: Nine focus groups with 103 pharmacist participants were conducted, with an average of 11 participants in each group. Inductively derived concepts that emerged included: willingness to adopt asthma service provision roles, pragmatism in recognising essential barriers/facilitators in adopting such roles, reflections regarding practice gaps and barriers to interprofessional collaboration mainly in relation to doctors. Inductive data analysis indicated clear differences in responses between hospital and non-hospital pharmacists. Key barriers to service provision included lack of training, lack of supportive professional frameworks, time and lack of reimbursement channels for services. Participants urged for a visionary leadership to facilitate pharmacists' role expansion into health services provision in Indonesia. CONCLUSIONS: Indonesian pharmacists were willing to adopt change and reported universally recognised barriers and facilitators to changing roles, especially in the provision of asthma care. Given this universality of pharmacists expressions, it may be suggested that the experience of researchers and academics who have expended time and effort in developing and implementing asthma care models in other countries should be, to some extent, transplanted to regions where pharmacy organisations are now considering adopting roles additional to medicines supply.

Early Implementation of Universal Health Coverage Among Hypertension Subjects in Sleman District of Yogyakarta.

AIM: to evaluate the participant rate of the new universal health coverage (UHC) and its impact on the hypertensive subjects from the rural area in the Sleman-District of Yogyakarta during the early implementation. METHODS: this epidemiological survey of the new UHC implementation was included as an analytical cross-sectional study done with cluster random sampling. The subject criteria were aged 30-85 year, not in pregnancy, and signed the informed-consent. Subjects were grouped based on the health coverage disparity and analyzed with chi-square statistics for the hypertension prevalence, awareness, therapy, and control. The additional variables of BMI, education, occupation, income, smoking, diet control, physical activity, and health facilities were grouped into binomial data and analyzed based-on the health coverage disparity. RESULTS: of 926 total subjects, 602 (65.0%) subjects had the health coverage including 9.2% of the new UHC. The groups of with and without health coverage were not significantly different in hypertension prevalence, the profile of age, blood pressure, and the proportion of the other variables (p>0.05) except for smoking and physical activities. In the high blood pressure sub-group (n=446), the subjects without health coverage had lower proportion of the hypertension awareness p<0.02; OR: 0.60 (CI95%:0.39-0.91) and therapy p<0.03; OR: 0.50 (CI95%:0.27-0.94), but not in the blood pressure control (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: the participant rate of new UHC was relatively low at 9.2%. Among the subgroup with 140/90mmHg blood pressure, the subjects without health coverage were more likely to have lower hypertension awareness and suboptimal therapy than those with the health coverage program.