Medicines use reviews (MURs) identify issues in a third of patients undergoing their first review, according to research in the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice, which was also presented during the RPS Conference in Birmingham. In addition, annual MURs reduce both the number of issues identified and the number of patients needing interventions.

The study included 121 patients who had undergone consecutive annual MURs for three years in a single pharmacy in Redditch. Of these, 66 patients were male and the median age was 63 years, ranging from 42 to 90 years.

In the first year, MURs identified 53 issues in 34 per cent of patients in four areas:

• Non-adherence
• Lack of understanding about their medicines
• Medicine wastage
• Side-effects.

This declined to 39 issues in 26 per cent of patients in year two and 28 issues in 19 per cent of patients during year three.

MURs – repeat annually

Over the three years, side-effects emerged as the commonest issue (40 cases), followed by non-adherence (29 cases), lack of understanding (26 cases) and medicines wastage (15 cases).

Seventeen of the 18 patients who experienced side-effects in year one no longer had adverse events in year two. In most cases side-effects resolved after a change in prescribed medicines following pharmacists’ interventions.

In year two, 13 patients experienced side-effects. Twelve of these were different patients from year one. Sixteen patients were non-adherent during year one. Only two remained non-adherent in years two and three but another five and a further four patients were non-adherent in years two and three respectively.

The author commented that medicines use reviews had a “positive impact” – most issues identified during a MUR resolved by the following year’s review. However, MURs need to be repeated annually to identify new issues.

_{(International Journal of Pharmacy Practice 2015; Supplement 2: 104-105)}