Background Compliance is sometimes difficult for patients treated with temozolomide, because of the inconvenience due to the high daily number of capsules needed. Studies with other drugs showed that pillboxes increased patient satisfaction.

Purpose To determine if pharmaceutical information and the use of pillboxes may improve satisfaction of patients treated with temozolomide.

Materials and Methods This prospective and interventional study included adult patients who picked temozolomide up in our Hospital Pharmacy (01/03/2012 to 31/08/2012).

In the first visit, patients previously treated with temozolomide completed a satisfaction questionnaire, which was adapted from the ESTAR questionnaire (ARPAS study). It consisted of 9 questions to be answered from 0 (very unsatisfied) to 6 (very satisfied), and another two items about temozolomide information. In addition, pharmaceutical information and pillboxes were provided to all patients.

At their next visit, patients received another questionnaire, with 6 of the previous satisfaction questions and 5 new questions about usefulness of the pillbox and of the received information.

Results 35 patients were evaluated with the first questionnaire (50.69 ± 13.38 years old; 77.14% were treated with ≥3 capsules per dose) and 28 of them filled in the second questionnaire (50.32 ± 12.45 years old; 75% taking ≥3 capsules per dose). 88.57% vs. 85.71% of patients took their pills in cycles of 5 days followed by 23 days without treatment.

Satisfaction pre- and post-intervention was related to: the number of capsules prescribed per dose (4.43 ± 1.60 vs. 4.96 ± 0.84), the possibility of taking their treatment everywhere (5.17 ± 0.92 vs. 5.32 ± 0.82), and the convenience of the chemotherapeutic regime (5.06 ± 0.94 vs. 5.07 ± 1.05).

The usefulness of the pharmaceutical attention, the pillbox and the leaflet were valuated as 5.46 ± 0.58, 5.39 ± 0.69 and 5.68 ± 0.48, respectively. Global satisfaction with pharmaceutical attention was 5.79 ± 0.42.

Conclusions In this study, information provided by hospital pharmacist and the use of pillboxes improved satisfaction in patients treated with temozolomide.

No conflict of interest.