Background and purpose : Clinical pharmacists are core members of a multidisciplinary team in critical care, playing a pivotal role in improving patient treatment. The responsibility of pharmacists for pharmacotherapeutic outcomes in South Korea has increased over the years. However, different interventional approaches or points of view in regard to patient medication exist among pharmacists, especially new team members. The purpose of this study was to set up principles of medication interventions, to develop an evidence-based checklist to minimize the difference of intervention levels, and to standardize tasks in interventions provided by pharmacists.
<br>Methods : After a comprehensive review of the literature, guidelines and protocols, the relevant items were identified. They were then structured in the form of a checklist. The consistency of the checklist was checked by a group of pharmacists involved in critical care. Cronbach’s alpha, a measure of internal consistency, was used to validate the checklist. Pharmacists’satisfaction with the checklist was assessed using Likert scales as a questionnaire survey.
<br>Results : We established an evidence-based checklist composed of seven categories for use in pharmaceutical interventions in critical care. A total of 69 pharmacists completed a questionnaire surveying satisfaction with the checklist. Consistency between two groups of pharmacists was 99.3 percent. The reliability of the checklist was Cronbach’s alpha 0.899, which validated the checklist. There was high satisfaction (4.32 on the Likert scale) with the checklist among pharmacists.
<br>Conclusions : The checklist may provide a useful tool for clinical pharmacists to conduct a highly-specialized critical care pharmaceutical intervention with evidence-based reliability.
