Impact of a pharmacist-led implant education service on patient knowledge and healthcare-seeking behaviour: the POSTIMP randomised controlled trial

Objective To evaluate a structured pharmacist-led implant education service six months after surgery. Methods POSTIMP was a multicentre, participant-blinded randomised controlled trial in orthopaedic and plastic surgery centres within a French university hospital. Adults undergoing hip, knee, or breast implantation were randomised 1:1 to usual support (15-min consultation with implant documents, booklet presentation, and questions) or structured support (30-min interactive consultation adding a six-question quiz, implant image, corrective feedback, and counselling on identification, traceability, follow-up, vigilance, and adverse-event reporting). The primary outcome was correct spontaneous recall of the implant manufacturer, brand, or model at six months, verified against hospital traceability records. Intention-to-treat analyses used logistic regression. Results Among 235 participants, spontaneous recall was higher with structured than usual support (13.6% vs 1.7%; odds ratio [OR] 9.02, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.49–57.9; p = 0.004). In an exploratory imputed analysis, correct identification from memory or a predefined list was also higher (29.7% vs 12.8%; OR 2.87, 95% CI 1.49–5.75; p = 0.002). Awareness of adverse-event self-reporting increased (OR 2.46, 95% CI 1.40–4.40; p = 0.002), and more participants contacted the surgical department (OR 3.12, 95% CI 1.38–7.77; p = 0.009), without more emergency visits or hospitalisations. Conclusion Structured pharmacist-led implant education improved verified implant knowledge and direct postoperative engagement. It may support earlier, better-directed responses to implant-related concerns, although effects on complications and healthcare use require confirmation. Trial registration: NCT04302233 .