Community pharmacy

INTRODUCTION: Medication adherence can be defined as the extent to which one's medication-taking behaviour follows that mutually agreed upon by the prescribing physician. Optimal medication adherence is often deemed crucial for the success of a patient's treatment, as suboptimal adherence may lead to treatment failure and unnecessary medical expenditure. Increasing evidence has highlighted the positive contribution community pharmacist-led interventions can have on improving patients' adherence and health outcomes...

Background The benefits of professional pharmacy services in improving patient outcomes and reducing health expenditure are well documented. To a large extent, these services are not implemented in many developing countries. Objective To explore pharmacists' perceptions of and willingness to provide professional services in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the perceived barriers and facilitators. The current provision of pharmacy-based services and capacity for service delivery were also explored. Setting Community pharmacies in Sharjah and Dubai in the UAE...

Federal regulations governing access to levonorgestrel (LNG) emergency contraception (EC) have evolved since its introduction in the 1990s. LNG EC was initially available by prescription only, but is now available over-the-counter to consumers of all ages. Nonetheless, consumers seeking EC in their communities may face ongoing barriers to access including low stock and inaccurate information provided by pharmacy staff. We conducted a review of LNG EC secret shopper studies to describe changes in EC access and barriers over time...

Background: In 2013, the Government of Chhattisgarh announced a policy guaranteeing access to free generic medicines in all the public health facilities. This study was conducted with the objectives of evaluating the prescribing patterns of physicians in public health facilities with regard to generic medicines, and whether the prescribed generic medicines were made available to patients. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducting from December 2013-October 2014, using exit interviews of patients...

Introduction: Poor adherence is an important barrier to adequate blood pressure control among the diagnosed hypertensives. The study aimed at assessing the level of adherence to medication and to identify factors associated with it in people with hypertension in a rural population of Kerala. Subjects and Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in July 2016 among 189 known hypertensives of a rural population in Kerala. Data was collected by interview method using a semistructured questionnaire...

BACKGROUND: There is growing interest in utilizing community pharmacies to support opioid abuse prevention and addiction treatment efforts. However, it is unknown whether the placement of community pharmacies is conducive to taking on such a role. OBJECTIVE: To examine the distribution of community pharmacies in Wisconsin and its relationship with the location of addiction treatment facilities and opioid-related overdose events in rural and urban areas. METHODS: The total number of opioid-related overdose deaths and crude death rates per 100,000 population were determined for each county in Wisconsin...

Background In December 2014 Slovene Chamber of Pharmacies defined procedures for Medicines Use Review (MUR) in Slovenia, together with an educational program and certification to ensure pharmacists' competency to perform MUR. The first 15 pharmacists were certified in June 2015 and implemented the service in their practices. Objective This study aimed to understand the implementation of MUR from the perspectives of the first community pharmacists providing the service in practice. Methods A focus group with first MUR providers took place in February 2016, 6 months after the first pharmacists were certified to provide MUR service...

INTRODUCTION: Community pharmacists are well positioned to deliver chronic kidney disease (CKD) screening services. However, little is known about the challenges faced by pharmacists during service implementation. This study aimed to explore community pharmacists' experiences and perceived barriers of implementing a CKD risk assessment service. METHODS: Data collection was performed by using semistructured, open-ended interview questions. Pharmacists who had implemented a CKD screening service in Tasmania, Australia, were eligible to participate...

INTRODUCTION: Compression therapy is well-established standard of care for chronic leg ulcers from venous disease and lymphedema. Chronic leg ulcers and lymphedema have a significant impact on quality of life, driven by pain, foul odor, and restricted mobility. Provision of layered compression therapy in resource-limited settings, as in Western Kenya and other regions of sub-Saharan Africa, is a major challenge due to several barriers: availability, affordability, and access to healthcare facilities...

Pregabalin is currently approved for the treatment of epilepsy, generalized anxiety disorder, neuropathic pain, and fibromyalgia. A qualitative study was undertaken in Jordan, where concerns have been raised about its unprescribed availability in community pharmacies and thereby its abuse. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with all patients with a history of pregabalin use in two Jordanian addiction treatment centers. All were male patients aged 21-30 years ( n  = 11). The majority was poly-drug abusers and had a previous history of substance abuse (tramadol, Captagon, synthetic cannabinoids, and marijuana) ...

BACKGROUND: Recent changes within community pharmacy have seen a shift towards some pharmacies providing "value-added" services. However, providing high levels of service is resource intensive yet revenues from dispensing are declining. Of significance therefore, is how consumers perceive service quality (SQ). However, at present there are no validated and reliable instruments to measure consumers' perceptions of SQ in Australian community pharmacies. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to build a theory-grounded model of service quality (SQ) in community pharmacies and to create a valid survey instrument to measure consumers' perceptions of service quality...

BACKGROUND: Health reform has been an ongoing agenda in many countries with community pharmacy increasingly gaining attention for contributing to healthcare improvement. Likewise, multiple policy approaches have been introduced to improve community pharmacy practice in Indonesia yet no studies have evaluated their effectiveness. Therefore, this study aimed to identify and collate information on approaches intended to improve practice in Indonesian community pharmacy and subsequently examine the perceptions of key stakeholders in healthcare and community pharmacy about these approaches and the extent to which they have affected community pharmacists as a profession...

BACKGROUND: Community pharmacists are autonomous, regulated health care professionals located in urban and rural communities in Canada. The accessibility, knowledge, and skills of community pharmacists can be leveraged to increase mental illness and addictions care in communities. METHODS: The Bloom Program was designed, developed, and implemented based on the Behaviour Change Wheel and a program of research in community pharmacy mental healthcare capacity building...

INTRODUCTION: Community pharmacy is an ideal setting to monitor medication adherence, however, barriers to pharmacist-led interventions exist. Preparing future pharmacists for enhanced roles may overcome such barriers. Our objective was to identify medication monitoring attitudes and contextual factors that influence adherence monitoring by pharmacy interns to inform educational activities on medication adherence. METHODS: An online factorial survey of all pharmacy interns (N = 123) in the Republic of Ireland, completing advanced community pharmacy experiential learning in May 2016 was undertaken to evaluate attitudes to medication monitoring and to identify respondent characteristics and contextual factors which influence adherence monitoring of older hypertensive adults during repeat dispensing...

OBJECTIVES: To 1) identify barriers to medication adherence and 2) examine the relationship between the Indian Health Service (IHS) 3 prime questions and medication adherence in patients with diabetes, hypertension, or hyperlipidemia before and 6 months after intervention. METHODS: This quasi-experimental study evaluated the effectiveness of an adherence program at an independent community pharmacy. Patients who met inclusion criteria were telephoned monthly to answer questions related to their medications...

This retrospective cohort study evaluated the relationship between antipsychotic medication adherence and emergency department (ED) utilization for 7851 Medicaid patients with schizophrenia enrolled in Community Care of North Carolina (CCNC). Claims and pharmacy data from January to December 2015 were collected. Medication adherence was approximated using the medication possession ratio (MPR). Negative binomial regressions estimated the effect of antipsychotic adherence on rates of medical and psychiatric ED visits...

OBJECTIVES: To 1) identify specific patient barriers and pharmacist interventions to medication adherence by means of the Drug Adherence Work-Up (DRAW) tool; and 2) measure patient adherence to antihypertensive and antidiabetic medications by calculating proportion of days covered (PDC) before and after pharmacist telephone adherence interview. DESIGN: This prospective quality-improvement study consisted of telephonic interviews and targeted interventions to increase medication adherence based on patient-specific barriers...

Adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET) taken for a minimum of five years reduces the recurrence and mortality risks among women with hormone-sensitive breast cancer. However, adherence to AET is suboptimal. To guide the development of theory-based interventions to enhance AET adherence, we conducted a study to explore beliefs regarding early adherence to AET. This qualitative study was guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). We conducted focus groups and individual interviews among women prescribed AET in the last two years ( n = 43)...

Background: Neurological disorders represent one of the most prominent causes of morbidity and mortality that adversely affect the lifestyle of patients and a major percentage of these diseases exists in developing countries. Purpose: The objective of this study was to examine the prevalence and prescription pattern for outpatients with neurological disorders in Bangladesh. Methods: The study was conducted on 1,684 patients in 6 hospitals (National Institute of Neurosciences and Hospital, Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College, Sir Salimullah Medical College, and Apollo Hospitals Dhaka) of the Dhaka City from March 2014 to June 2015...

BACKGROUND: The use of clinical pharmacists in primary care has improved the control of several chronic cardiovascular conditions. However, many private physician practices lack the resources to implement team-based care with pharmacists. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether a centralized, remote, clinical pharmacy service could improve guideline adherence and secondary measures of cardiovascular risk in primary care offices in rural and small communities. METHODS AND RESULTS: This study was a prospective trial in 12 family medicine offices cluster randomized to either the intervention or usual care...