Pharmacist educational interventions for cancer pain management: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

Objectives: Educational interventions by pharmacists for patients with cancer pain aim to improve pain management, but little is known about the different components of interventions and their effectiveness. Our aim was to assess the benefit of pharmacist delivered educational interventions for patients with cancer pain. A systematic review and meta‐analysis of experimental trials testing pharmacist delivered educational interventions for cancer pain was carried out to identify the components of interventions and effectiveness at improving pain‐related outcomes for patients with cancer. A literature review was conducted in EMBASE, MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ASSIA, Web of Science and CENTRAL from inception until January 2018 searching for educational interventions involving a pharmacist for patients with cancer pain. Four studies were included involving 944 patients. Meta‐analysis was carried out where possible.

Key findings: Meta‐analysis of three of the four studies found that mean pain intensity in the intervention group was reduced by 0.76 on a 0–10 scale (95% confidence interval), although only two of the studies used validated measures of pain. Improvements in knowledge, side effects and patient satisfaction were seen although with less reliable measures.

Summary: Pharmacist educational interventions for patients with cancer pain have been found to show promise in reducing pain intensity. Studies were few and of varying quality. Further, good quality studies should be carried out in this area and these should be comprehensively reported. Trials measuring patient self‐efficacy and patient satisfaction are needed before the impact of the pharmacist delivered interventions on these outcomes can be established.