Impact of a Pharmacist-led Patient-centred Care Intervention Along With Text-Message Reminders, on the Management of Newly Diagnosed Tubercular Patients: a Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial'.
Condition: Pulmonary TB; TB
MeSH terms: Tuberculosis, Pulmonary
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      This project aims to standardize the management of "Pharmaceutical care with the two-way text
      messages and incentive for mobile usage during the treatment for tuberculosis patients, to
      improve the outcomes and compliance, reduce the risk of transmission and to evaluate the
      patient perspective in terms of their quality of life, shared decision making and
      satisfaction with services provided.
    

Detailed description: 
      Tuberculosis (TB) remains a top ten leading cause of death globally despite it being a
      largely curable disease. New effective treatment supervision strategies are needed
      particularly in low-resource high TB burden settings and a potential solution is in the hands
      of nearly every patient - a mobile phone. Modern modular design mobile phone software
      applications ("apps") hold great promise to address this unmet need. Current technologies
      allow for rapid design modification based on end-user needs, implementation of native
      operating system (e.g., Android) versions for users with inconsistent internet access, and
      the integration of the patients' experiences with electronic health records using industry
      standards. Apps can perform multiple functions (e.g., automated reminders, symptom tracking,
      secure messaging, and multi-media education). Another strategy is pharmaceutical care which
      is utilized to enhance TB treatment compliance along with usage of mobile technologies, where
      clinical pharmacists provide patient education to improve the patient's knowledge on the
      disease and medication use and address the patient's drug-related problems. The use of a
      pharmaceutical care model to improve treatment outcomes and enhance adherence is on the rise
      in healthcare organizations. At the first visit, the clinical pharmacist provides a mobile
      phone number and encourages patients to contact them anytime if they need any consultation on
      the TB treatment. Patients will make prior arrangements with a study pharmacist to determine
      a convenient meeting place. These meetings will continue until treatment completion. To our
      knowledge, worldwide there has only been no randomized controlled trial (RCT) which has
      described the use of both pharmaceutical care model and two-way Short Message Service (SMS)
      communication with financial incentives (mobile money transfer cover healthcare costs related
      to SMS charges) to improve treatment outcomes. To find out both the pharmaceutical care model
      and two-way SMS communication with financial incentives would be helpful for TB patients in
      Pakistan. Therefore investigator aimed a study, to find out the effectiveness of trial gauged
      with the impact of the suggested model on the improved adherence, treatment completion,
      health-related quality of life and satisfaction with TB care.
    

Intervention name(s): New management mode
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): New management mode intervention: Pharmaceutical care
SMS text messages and Phone Calls
Behavioural Educational leaflet
Self-Administered Therapy A financial incentive for mobile use
Other intervention name(s): Pharmaceutical care, Mobile text, Financial incentive for mobile use
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Health Services Research