A comparison of the Indian Health Service counseling technique with traditional, lecture-style counseling

To the best of our knowledge, one or more authors of this paper were federal employees when contributing to this work. This is the publisher’s final pdf. The article is copyrighted by American Pharmacists Association and published by Elsevier. It can be found at: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-the-american-pharmacists-associationObjectives:\ud To compare the immediate postcounseling retention of important information using the traditional method with retention obtained using the Indian Health Service (IHS) interactive technique, and to compare the time required to counsel patients on new prescriptions using the traditional method with the time required using the IHS technique.\ud \ud Design:\ud A prospective, nonrandomized, observational study at four different local community pharmacies in Oregon. Two sites that used the traditional counseling model served as the control sites, while two other sites used the IHS counseling model. Only new prescriptions were included in this study. The pharmacists did not alter their counseling styles for new prescriptions for the purposes of this study. The duration of counseling between the pharmacist and patient was recorded. Immediately upon completion of counseling, patients met with the primary investigator for postcounseling knowledge assessment on indication of therapy, directions on how to take their medication properly, and expected adverse effects.\ud \ud Setting:\ud Four local community pharmacies in Oregon.\ud \ud Participants:\ud Five hundred patients at four local community pharmacies in Oregon.\ud \ud Intervention:\ud Use of the IHS counseling technique.\ud \ud Main outcome measures:\ud Immediate recall of key counseling points and time per counseling session.\ud \ud Results: \ud A total of 500 patients participated in the study. Seventy-one percent of patients counseled using the IHS technique answered all three questions correctly, compared with 33% of patients counseled using the traditional method (P