• Yuya Ise, Tatsuya Morita, Shirou Katayama, and Yoshiyuki Kizawa.
• Department of Pharmaceutical Services, Nippon Medical School Hospital, Tokyo, Japan. Electronic address: yuyaise@nms.ac.jp.
• J Pain Symptom Manage. 2014 Mar 1;47(3):588-93.

ContextThe role of pharmacists in palliative care has become more important now that they are able to provide medication review, patient education, and advice to physicians about a patient's pharmacotherapy. However, there is little known about pharmacists' activity on palliative care teams.ObjectivesThe present study aimed to examine the clinical, educational, and research activities of pharmacists on palliative care teams and pharmacist-perceived contributions to a palliative care team or why they could not contribute.MethodsWe sent 397 questionnaires to designated cancer hospitals, and 304 responses were analyzed (response rate 77%).ResultsOf the pharmacists surveyed, 79% and 94% reported attending ward rounds and conferences, respectively. Half of the pharmacists provided information/suggestions to the team about pharmacology, pharmaceutical production, managing adverse effects, drug interactions, and/or rotation of drugs. In addition, 80% of the pharmacists organized a multidisciplinary conference on palliative care education. Furthermore, 60% of the pharmacists reported on palliative care research to a scientific society. Seventy percent of the pharmacists reported some level of contribution to a palliative care team, whereas 16% reported that they did not contribute, with the main perceived reasons for no contribution listed as insufficient time (90%) and/or staff (68%).ConclusionIn Japan, pharmacists exercise a moderate level of clinical activity on palliative care teams. Many pharmacists believe that they contribute to such a team and generally place more emphasis on their educational and research roles compared with clinical work.Crown Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

27 keywords...

hide…