Usefulness and Issues of Hospital–Pharmacy Collaboration in Outpatient Cancer Chemotherapy: A Study Based on a Patient Questionnaire Survey

Multidisciplinary patient support, such as bi-directional information sharing between hospitals and community pharmacies (hospital–pharmacy collaboration), is crucial for the safe administration of outpatient cancer chemotherapy. At our hospital, patients are provided with documents detailing their treatment regimen, medication history, and laboratory results and are instructed to present them at the community pharmacy; this approach allows community pharmacies to utilize documents for medication guidance and adverse drug reaction monitoring. This study employed a questionnaire survey to investigate patients’ opinions, awareness, and behaviors regarding hospital–pharmacy collaborationand the pharmaceutical care provided at community pharmacies. Questionnaires were distributed to 414 patients receiving outpatient cancer chemotherapy at Iwate Medical University Hospital in February 2024, among whom 343 consented to participate in the study. Only 36.4％ of patients presented the information documents to a community pharmacy, with the most common reason for not doing so being “did not know” (n = 169). Patients who presented with the documents were more likely to receive adverse drug reaction monitoring (34.4％ vs 54.5％) and to consult pharmacists regarding side effects (33.5％ vs 58.7％) at the community pharmacy than those who never presented the documents. Patients also reported higher satisfaction with side effect monitoring and support (26.1％ vs 46.9％) and with pharmacists’ responses during consultations (30.3％ vs 50.4％). These results suggest that hospital-to-pharmacy information sharing improves patient satisfaction and access to specialized pharmaceutical care. However, the low document presentation rate underscores the need to raise patient awareness regarding the importance of this collaboration.