Pak. J. Pharm. Sci., Vol.31, No.6(Suppl), November 2018, pp.2607-2616 2607 Impact of pharmacist’s intervention on disease related knowledge, medication adherence, HRQoL and control of blood pressure among hypertensive patients Muhammad Amer 1 , Nisar Ur Rahman 1* , Saeed Ur Rashid Nazir 2* , Atif Raza 3 , Humayun Riaz 4 , Misbah Sultana 3 and Saleha Sadeeqa 5 1 Department of Pharmacy, COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad Campus, Pakistan 2 Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan 3 University College of Pharmacy, University of Punjab Lahore, Pakistan 4 Rashid Latif College of Pharmacy, Lahore, Pakistan 5 Institute of Pharmacy, Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, Pakistan Abstract: The present study was aimed to evaluate the effect of educational intervention provided to the patients of hypertension through pharmacist with the goal to improve knowledge about hypertension, adherence to prescribed medicines, blood pressure control and HRQoL (Health Related Quality of Life). A total of 384 patients were assigned randomly into 2 groups including intervention and control groups each having 192 patients. Urdu versions of knowledge questionnaire regarding hypertension, medication adherence scale (MMAS-U) by Morisky and EuroQol scale (EQ-5D) were utilized. Each patient’s blood pressure was measured. After educational intervention, an increase was found in mean knowledge score about hypertension (18.18 ± 4.00), adherence score (5.89 ± 1.90), HRQoL score (0.73 ± 0.12) and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score (69.39 ± 5.90) among the IG. The blood pressure control also improved and lower systolic (131.81 ± 10.98 mmHg) and diastolic blood pressures (83.75 ± 6.21 mmHg) were observed among the patients of IG. This study showed that educational programs are useful for patients in increasing patient’s levels of knowledge about hypertension, improving adherence to prescribed medication and enhancing blood pressure control. This increase is in turn accountable to improve HRQoL. Keywords: Pharmacist’s intervention, adherence, blood pressure control and sphygmomanometer. INTRODUCTION Hypertension (HTN) is the leading worldwide concern. It is one of the basic avoidable risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. It has a great disturbing effect on people’s health and results in needless morbidity and mortality. Hypertension alone is believed to be responsible for >5.8 % of death all over the world, loss of 11.9 % year of life as well as adjusted life of 1.4 %. For researchers of health care, assessment, management as well as control of hypertension is still a big challenge (Kannel, 1996). Hypertension is becoming a major clinical and public health issue in Pakistan (Saleem et al., 2011). It was reported that that prevalence of hypertension is 33% in Pakistan. Every 3 rd individual aged above 40 years becoming increasingly susceptible to different diseases (Saleem et al., 2010). For the treatment of hypertension, guidelines and evidence-based management have been made available since 1990s. however, the blood pressure control still remains a big challenge for health-care providers (Godley et al., 2001). It was also reported that only fifty percent of the hypertensive patients were diagnosed and only half of these diagnosed patients were ever treated. Correct medication was prescribed to half of those patients who were treated for hypertension in order to control the condition effectively. Therefore, only 12.5% cases of hypertension were controlled adequately (Saleem et al., 2010). This uncontrolled hypertension might result from either patient-related or physician related barriers. Major barriers related to patient in achieving target goal of blood pressure include poor adherence to medication, patient’s beliefs regarding hypertension as well as its treatment, low literacy of health and lacking of social support (Ogedegbe, 2008). Barriers which are Patient- centered are adjustable. However, beliefs of patient and attitudes towards use of medication cannot be entrenched. In Pakistan, the deficiency of health-care services as well as the poor infrastructure for health-care are the major hurdles in controlling the emerging epidemic of hypertension. Health care services are also very expensive as well as patients have to pay majority of health care costs by themselves. Lack of health care facilities, shortage of health care professionals and insufficient allocation of health budget are major barriers to delivery of optimal and quality health care. Most of the times, the *Corresponding author: e-mail: srnazir@yahoo.com, nisar60@yahoo.com