Introduction: Elderly people are a rising population in Iceland. With higher age the likelihood of drug consumption increases and thus drug therapy problems. Pharmaceutical care has been established abroad, where the pharmacist works in collaboration with other healthcare professionals to reduce patients' drug therapy problems. The aim of this research was to study the number and types of drug therapy problems of older individuals in primary care in Garðabær, by providing pharmacist-led pharmaceutical care in collaboration with general practitioners.

Methods: Five general practitioners selected patients, 65 years and older, and asked the pharmacist to provide them with pharmaceutical care service. The pharmacist provided pharmaceutical care using a well-defined process.

Results: A total of 100 patients participated in the research, 44 men and 56 women. On average the pharmacist identified two drug therapy problems per patient. The most frequent drug therapy problem was related to noncompliance (30.1%), next was adverse drug reaction (26.7%) and the third was unnecessary drug therapy (18.2%). Almost all pharmacist comments were accepted by the general practitioners (90.3%).

Conclusions: Our results reveal that a pharmacist providing pharmaceutical care makes, on average, two comments regarding each drug therapy. In almost all cases the general practitioners accept the comments.

Table I: Risk factors for pharmaceutical care research participation in primary care in Garðabær. The risk factors specified above are related to increased risk of experiencing drug therapy problems. It´s the same criteria which are used in collaboration between pharmacists and general practitioners in Australia.

Table II: Classes of drug therapy problems by categorized system Cipolle et al.

Table III: Most common medical indications in 100 patients receiving pharmaceutical care in primary care in Iceland.

Table IV: The nature of drug therapy ploblem found and commented on by the pharmacist.

Figure I: The pharmacist-led pharmaceutical care service in collaboration with general practitioners, and patients in Garðabær.