Objective: The government has been promoting further contribution to home care by pharmacists since almost all homebound patients are prescribed more than one medicine. However, little information is available on the adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in home care setting. This study was conducted to describe the ADRs reported by pharmacists in home care and examine factors related to their reports.

Design: Questionnaire survey

Methods: We requested patient-visiting pharmacists at community pharmacies throughout Japan to answer questions about their patients. Main questions included patient characteristics, number of drugs taken, presence of ADRs and details, and pharmacists' workload related to home-visiting.

Results: Data on 5,447 patients were collected from 1,890 pharmacies. The percentage of patients in whom the visiting pharmacists found ADRs was 14.4%. ADRs reported in 10 or more cases covered 12 categories, accounting for 85.2% of all ADRs. The top five categories were: dizziness, grogginess, or lightheadedness; gastrointestinal disturbances; clinical test value abnormality; altered mentation; and cutaneous symptoms. In seven of the 12 ADR categories, central nervous system drugs such as sleeping pills, antianxiety drugs, and psychoneurosis drugs were in the top three suspected drugs. Additionally, patients' gender, residential situation, and the number of drugs taken were implied as factors related to ADRs.

Conclusion：Our study indicated that, while the percentage of ADR occurrences in home-visiting service in Japan was at the same level as outpatients in other countries, drugs for the central nervous system accounted for a higher percentage of suspected drugs. Further, occurrence of ADRs was associated with the use of more than 6 concomitant drugs. These results suggest that physicians and pharmacists need to collaborate in decreasing the number and dose of central nervous system drugs.

Objective: To examine the effect of pharmacists’ visits to homebound patients on the elimination of unused drugs.
Method: We conducted a survey with pharmacies throughout Japan that provided home-visit service, asking them questions regarding their work with up to five patients (the survey period was from January 15 through the end of February, 2013).  Main survey questions were: (1) whether they managed unused drugs since the start of their home-visit, and (2) how they managed the unused drugs.  For (2), we conducted case studies by asking the pharmacists to choose the case that impressed them most and describe the unused drugs involved, actions taken, and the results.
Results: Data on 5,447 patients were collected from 1,890 pharmacies throughout Japan (collection rate: 56.9%).  Pharmacists managed unused drugs from 2,484 patients (45.6%). 1,746 patients (3,590 cases) were qualified for analysis.  In 2,332 cases (65.0%), pharmacist intervention eliminated the incidences of unused drugs.  In 782 cases (21.8%), unused drugs were discarded, while the number of drug administration days was adjusted in 2,623 cases (73.1%).  In 21 cases (0.6%), drugs were both discarded and had the number of days adjusted.  There were others for 164 cases (4.5%).  The total price of the eliminated unused drugs was approximately 6,920,000 yen (4,000 yen/person).  Illnesses that benefited most from the elimination of unused drugs were chronic respiratory failure (16,306 yen/person), and Parkinson’s disease (4,803 yen/person).
Conclusion: We confirmed the economic effect of eliminating unused drugs by pharmacists’ home visits.