International journal of clinical pharmacy
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With increasing deregulation of prescription-only medicines and drive for self-care, pharmacists have greater scope to manage more conditions. This brings added responsibility to be competent healthcare professionals who deliver high quality evidence-based patient care. ⋯ Safety was the primary concern when making decisions about over-the counter medicines. Pharmacists lacked knowledge of evidence-based practice and considered medicines which lacked evidence of effectiveness to have an important role in self-care. These factors present barriers to the widespread implementation of evidence-based practice.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Impact of pharmaceutical care on health outcomes in patients with COPD.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) treatment goals are often not achieved despite the availability of many effective treatments. Furthermore, clinical pharmacist interventions to improve clinical and humanistic outcomes in COPD patients have not yet been explored and few randomized controlled trials have been reported to evaluate the impact of pharmaceutical care on health outcomes in patients with COPD. ⋯ The enhanced patient outcomes as a result of the pharmaceutical care programme in the present study demonstrate the value of an enhanced clinical pharmacy service in achieving the desired health outcomes for patients with COPD.
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Appropriate prescribing is fundamental to successful pharmacotherapy. The status of current ambulatory medication practices in medicine and pharmacy would be better understood through an analysis of community pharmacy prescription claims. ⋯ Prescription errors are prevalent in ambulatory care in Taiwan, and differential practice standards exist between community and hospital services. This disparity needs to be reconciled by pertinent initiatives to enhance community-hospital and pharmacist-general practitioner communication and interprofessional educational efforts to improve medication use and safety.
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Comparative Study
The effect of medication reconciliation in elderly patients at hospital discharge.
To assess the impact of medication reconciliation interventions on medication error rates when elderly patients are discharged from hospital to community care or nursing homes. ⋯ Medication errors are still common when elderly patients are transferred from hospital to community/primary care. The main risk factor seems to be the specific medication dispensing system (ApoDos) or rather the process on how to use it. When this system was supported by clinical pharmacists, the error rate dropped to the same level as for patients without ApoDos.
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To assess current experiences and attitudes of hospital based paediatricians towards off-label medicine prescribing. ⋯ Off-label prescribing of medicines to children is a familiar concept to the majority of paediatricians in Jordan although only a smaller number are aware that it is common in their practice. Respondents showed concern about off label prescribing, although the majority do not consider it necessary to inform parents. More comprehensive research is needed in this area in Jordan and other Middle Eastern countries.