People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) typically don't take their medicines as directed and don't use their inhalers correctly. Pharmacists in the community can assist people with COPD improve their health-related quality of life and their overall health. We want to assess the efficacy of a systematic, pharmacist-led intervention on individuals diagnosed with COPD. This pragmatic, parallel-group, cluster randomized controlled trial aims to assess the efficacy of a multifactorial, pharmacist-led intervention on medication adherence, inhaler technique, health-related quality of life, healthcare resource utilization, including COPD exacerbations, and medication usage. In Newfoundland and Labrador (NL), Canada, pharmacists that choose to take part will be randomly put into either the intervention group or the control group. The intervention group will provide a better kind of care that focuses on managing COPD. The people in the control group will get their normal treatment and a booklet on COPD. Patients must be 40 years or older, have a doctor-confirmed diagnosis of COPD, and be able to fill out questionnaires in English. The key outcomes are the differences between the two groups in medication adherence from the start to 6 months, as measured by the Medication Possession Ratio (MPR) and the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8). The secondary outcomes are also measured from baseline to 6 months. They include the percentage of patients who had a clinically significant change in adherence, the percentage of patients who were considered to have "good adherence," the mean MPR between groups, quality of life as measured by the St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire, medication inhalation technique using a pharmacist-scored checklist, health care resource use, and the use of antibiotics and orally administered corticosteroids for COPD flare-ups. We will look at differences between groups at the level of each patient, taking into account the clustering effect.

A pharmacist-led intervention for COPD might help patients stick to their prescription, which could enhance their quality of life, lower the number of pulmonary exacerbations, and cut down on the use of acute health care resources. The methods and findings of this research might improve how community pharmacists provide treatment for COPD in the real world. This would improve the health and quality of life of those with COPD.