International journal of clinical pharmacy
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Background People diagnosed with serious mental illnesses (SMIs) such as schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder are frequently treated with antipsychotics. National guidance advises the use of shared decision-making (SDM) in antipsychotic prescribing. There is currently little data on the opinions of health professionals on the role of SDM. ⋯ Conclusion The mental health pharmacists support SDM for antipsychotic prescribing, believing that it improves outcomes. However, barriers are seen to limit implementation. More research is needed into overcoming the barriers and measuring the benefits of SDM, along with exploring a more inter-professional approach to SDM.
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Background Community pharmacists' role in screening of several chronic diseases has been widely explored. The global health burden of chronic kidney disease is high; however, the progression and adverse outcomes can be prevented or delayed by detecting and treating the disease in its initial stages 1-3. Therefore, a web-based training program was developed to enhance pharmacists' knowledge and skills required to perform a chronic kidney disease screening service in a community setting. ⋯ Cronbach's alpha for the nine-item satisfaction scale was 0.73 and the majority pharmacists (92.1-100 %) were satisfied with the various aspects of the training program. Conclusion The web-based training program positively enhanced pharmacists' knowledge and skills associated with chronic kidney disease screening. These findings support further development and widespread implementation of the training program to facilitate health promotion and early identification of chronic kidney disease in a community setting.
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Setting Fifteen community pharmacies in the UK. Objective Proof of concept study to test the use of community pharmacies for active case finding of patients with coeliac disease. Methods Customers accessing over-the counter and prescription medicines indicated in the treatment of possible symptoms of coeliac disease over a 6 month period were offered a free point of care test. ⋯ Of 43 customers who returned the satisfaction survey, all would recommend the service to others, believing the community pharmacy to be a suitable location. Community pharmacists believed that it enabled them to improve relationships with their customers and that medical practices were receptive to the service. Conclusion This proof of concept study has shown that community pharmacies using a point of care test can effectively recognise and refer patients for confirmatory coeliac disease testing with high levels of customer and service provider satisfaction.
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Background Medicine shortages are an ongoing global problem. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) dedicated a website for monitoring of medicine shortages in Australia in May 2014, as part of the Medicine Shortage Information Initiative. This study aimed to explore the views of pharmacists regarding medicine shortages in the community setting and the impact of the TGA website in Australia. ⋯ Also highlighted, was the importance of pharmacists prioritising patient care over business decisions. To reduce prescribing of out-of-stock medicines notifying doctors about shortages was also considered important, to allow for early action to be taken at higher levels of the supply chain. Findings of this study may help direct future policy-making around the world, as medicine shortages is a problem shared by healthcare providers in most countries around the world.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Impact of medication reconciliation at discharge on continuity of patient care in France.
Background Care transitions from hospital to community have been identified as risk points for the continuity of patient care. Without upstream information, the community pharmacist (CP) cannot ensure error-free drug dispensing. A hospital-to-community records transmission process would enable CPs to guarantee that all prescription drugs are ready to pick up at hospital discharge, and to improve their responses to patient health inquiries. ⋯ Mean hospital pharmacist time input required for this initiative was an estimated 21 min for the control group versus 35 min for the intervention group. Conclusion The results provide a strong rationale for embedding the process longer-term and extending it out to other healthcare services. A pre-project study is needed to define which service departments and patients groups should be given priority for this process initiative.