A significant proportion of patients taking nitrates for angina remain symptomatic with suboptimal quality of life, highlighting an opportunity for pharmacists to help optimize therapeutic strategies.
Ongoing symptomatic burden on nitrates suggests management review; leaves open whether pharmacist optimization improves outcomes in trials.
Background: Research indicates that successful treatment of angina is associated with improved patient quality of life. This pharmacist-conducted patient survey sought to assess patients' overall satisfaction with their current angina therapies. Methods: Patients in Quebec, Alberta and Ontario taking nitrates for angina were asked if they would be willing to participate in the Symptomatic Coronary Artery Disease (SCAD) survey administered by study pharmacists. Results of the study survey were sent to the research lead and tabulated. Results: A total of 208 surveys were completed. Almost 42% of patients reported at least 1 angina episode per week. When asked to choose the category that best described the frequency of their chest pain controlled by medication, 30% of patients indicated “on occasion,” “rarely” or “never.” More than one-quarter of respondents felt that the impact of their heart condition on quality of life was significantly or extremely negative. Conclusions: Current guidelines state that the treatment goal for most patients with chronic stable angina should be complete, or near complete, elimination of the pain. Results of this survey suggest that in many instances treatment for angina-related symptoms could be optimized. Pharmacists are in an ideal position to identify and recommend therapeutic strategies for patients with symptomatic coronary artery disease.
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Tom Smiley (2010) studied this question.
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