The effects of the medicative consultations and counseling to eight outpatients with familial hypercholestrolemia on colestyramine medications mainly by pharmacists were investigated. Eight outpatients had showed a frequent noncompliance for colestylamine but also other therapeutic drugs would be considered. In this study, a questionnaire survey on the patient's view regarding colestyramine resulted in the conclusion that large doses in suspension were difficult to swallow. In addition, some of the patients did not have sufficient knowledge of their own diseases. These above reasons were considered to be the main causes for noncompliance.
Trial of the medicative consultations and counseling were thus performed with both patients and pharmacists regarding colestyramine dosing and dieteric problems. These trials were thus found to improve medication compliance and the patient's understanding of their own diseases. Furthermore, the mean values of total cholesterol (T-Chol) and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-Chol) concentrations in the eight patients all significantly decreased after the medicative consultations and counseling compared to the period before starting the therapy (p<0.01) and these trials (p<0.05), respectively. In addition, decreases in the percentages of T-Chol and LDL-Chol per month after medicative consultations and counseling increased to about 2.5 times based on the values before medicative consultations and counseling and the difference was significant (p<0.01 in T-Chol, p<0.05 in LDL-Chol).
These results suggested that the medicative consultations and counseling with pharmacists and patients were found to improve pharmaceutical compliance in patients with familial hypercholesterolemia.