Impact of an Integrative Clinical Pharmacy Model on the Occurrence of
Complications in Patients implanted with a PICC Line
Abstract
Background Clinical pharmacy is an effective pharmaceutical discipline
in drug therapy management and in preventing iatrogenic events. Clinical
pharmacy studies in the medical device context are, however, rare in the
current literature. Purpose The purpose of this study is to prove that
clinical pharmacy is effective in the medical device context by reducing
PICC line complications post-implantation. Methods CLIPICC is a
prospective before-and-after single-centre study conducted in a
University Hospital. The study comprised two successive phases: an
initial observational phase (OP), where no clinical pharmacy activities
were carried out, followed by an interventional phase (IP), where
clinical pharmacy activities were implemented along the patient’s
hospital and primary care pathway. The key outcome of the study was the
number of complications per month and per patient in each phase.
Comparisons were made using negative binomial regression. Univariate and
multivariate analyses were performed with R software. Results A total of
138 patients were enrolled in the study. In the OP, 40 patients (59.7%)
presented at least one complication with 80 complications being recorded
overall in 67 patients. In the IP, 30 patients (45.5%) had at least one
complication with a total of 39 complications documented in 66 patients.
The number of complications per patient and per month was halved in the
interventional phase. Conclusion Clinical pharmacy interventions along
the entire care pathway are effective in preventing complications
following implantation of PICC lines. Trial registration: NCT04359056.