TCA ("To Come Again") problems among patients in OPD Pharmacy of Hospital Tuanku Ja'afar, Seremban: are patients compliance to their appointment date?

TCA slip is a slip with the appointment date which is patient need to attend to collect their medication. Pharmacists give TCA to patient who needs to come again the next month to collect the balance of the medication that is given as a partial supply. TCA is given to the patient based on the duration prescribed on the prescription which is more than a month of treatment. The objectives of this project are to evaluate the percentage of patient non-compliance with their appointment date and to determine the possible causes of this non-compliance. This project implemented by using prospective observational study and the sample size is 180 patients for the duration of three months. This study was conducted to focus on the percentage of patients' non­compliance to their appointment date and the reasons behind it. The percentage of the patient collected their medication on the appointment date decreased from 73.33% on December 2010 to 46.47% on January 2011 and 31.67% on February 2011. Meanwhile the total percentage patients collect their medication beyond their appointment date increasing from 20.01 % on December to 38.33% on January and up to 50% on February. The most contribution factors of these increments are patients have personal problems such as no transport, no parking, on holiday and they want to come at Friday or during weekend to avoid from take a long time to wait to get the medicine. To overcome of this situation, pharmacy had launched new services such as UMP (Ubat Melalui Pos), Integrated Drug Dispensing System (SPUB) and SMS and Email (SEA).