Research in social & administrative pharmacy : RSAP
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Res Social Adm Pharm · Sep 2013
Factors affecting adoption and implementation of AHRQ health literacy tools in pharmacies.
Pharmacies are key sources of medication information for patients, yet few effectively serve patients with low health literacy. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) supported the development of four health literacy tools for pharmacists to address this problem, and to help assess and improve pharmacies' health literacy practices. ⋯ If pharmacists are provided tools that could ultimately improve their health literacy practices and patient-centered services; and the tools have a clear relative advantage, are simple as well adaptable, and the pharmacists are supported in their efforts - either by colleagues or by collaborating with colleges of pharmacy-then there could be important progress toward achieving the goals of the National Action Plan for Health Literacy.
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Res Social Adm Pharm · Sep 2013
Exploring patient expectations for pharmacist-provided literacy-sensitive communication.
Limited health literacy is common and associated with adverse health care outcomes. Although pharmacies and pharmacists are accessible to most patients, research has indicated that they do not routinely report efforts to target interventions for patients with suboptimal health literacy. Moreover, little is known about the use and expectation of literacy-based communication techniques in pharmacies from the patient perspective. ⋯ Patient-pharmacist interactions consistently met or exceeded patient expectations. However, pharmacists use of literacy-based communication techniques was low as were patient expectations. Future research and training efforts should focus on not only increasing pharmacists' use of literacy-based communication techniques but also raising patients' expectations for performing these activities.
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Res Social Adm Pharm · Sep 2013
Assessing health literacy practices in a community pharmacy environment: experiences using the AHRQ Pharmacy Health Literacy Assessment Tool.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) developed the tool, "Is Our Pharmacy Meeting Patients' Needs? Pharmacy Health Literacy Assessment Tool" to evaluate health literacy preparedness of pharmacy environments from patient, staff, and environmental perspectives. The tool was designed at a clinic-based, outpatient pharmacy of a large, urban, public hospital. Despite the ready availability of this tool and the encouragement of AHRQ to adapt it to other environments, there is no published literature on the dissemination and translation of this tool in the community pharmacy environment. ⋯ This project is the first to report piloting, revision, and implementation of the AHRQ Health Literacy Assessment Tool in a community pharmacy practice setting. In addition to adapting data collection instruments and implementation strategies, opportunities that target training to facilitate use of literacy-sensitive practices and active patient engagement with literacy-sensitive communication techniques were identified.
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Res Social Adm Pharm · Jul 2013
Consumers' willingness to use a medication management service: the effect of medication-related worry and the social influence of the general practitioner.
Some consumers at risk of experiencing medication-related problems have chosen not to use pharmacist-provided medication management services. Previous research has shown that consumers' willingness to use the Australian Home Medicines Review (HMR) service depends on the extent to which they believe that they will receive medication information to assist them with self-management. ⋯ Those consumers who were worried about their medicines were more willing to use HMR. The consumer's GP appeared to exert a significant positive social influence over willingness to use this medication management service.
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Res Social Adm Pharm · May 2013
Over-the-counter prescribing and pharmacists' adoption of new medicines: diffusion of innovations.
More than 90 medicines in the United Kingdom alone have been reclassified from "prescription only" to "pharmacy" availability, and many of these have further been deregulated to "general sales" status. Pharmacist perspectives of reclassified medicines adoption into practice are important to inform future reclassifications. ⋯ Pharmacists' decision making regarding adoption of newly reclassified medicines is a complex and multidimensional process. This is the first study of this sort, and results of this qualitative study will aid development of a research instrument aimed at quantifying the importance of the factors identified.