Patient Prefer Adher
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Patient Prefer Adher · Jan 2011
Public's attitudes towards community pharmacy in Qatar: a pilot study.
To assess the public's attitudes towards the community pharmacist's role in Qatar, to investigate the public's use of community pharmacy, and to determine the public's views of and satisfaction with community pharmacy services currently provided in Qatar. ⋯ This pilot study suggested that the public has a poor understanding of the community pharmacist's role in monitoring drug therapy, performing health screening, and providing drug information. Several issues of concern were raised including insufficient pharmacist- patient contact time and unsatisfactory pharmacist knowledge. To advance pharmacy practice in Qatar, efforts may be warranted to address identified issues and to promote the community pharmacist's role in drug therapy monitoring, drug information provision, and health screening.
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Patient Prefer Adher · Oct 2010
Clinical utility and patient adherence with ebastine for allergic rhinitis.
Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a high prevalence disease, affecting 10%-20% of the general population. AR is sustained by an IgE-mediated reaction, and by a complex inflammatory network of cells, mediators, and cytokines, becoming chronic when exposure to allergen persists. A Th2-biased immune response is the basis for the allergic inflammation. ⋯ Several studies have demonstrated its favorable characteristics. In conclusion, ebastine is an effective and well tolerated antihistamine that may be prescribed for the treatment of AR. The fast-dissolving tablet formulation provides a new option which may be particularly convenient for the patient.
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Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a complex disorder in which interactions between environmental and genetic factors result in the development of insulin resistance (in most cases) and progressive pancreatic β-cell failure. The currently available oral anti-diabetes treatments are effective as monotherapy; however, due to the progressive decline in β-cell function, most patients will require the use of combination therapy and eventually insulin to reach glycemic targets. These therapeutic options are not without undesirable side effects such as weight gain and hypoglycemia. Furthermore, T2DM is associated with impaired quality of life (QOL) and poor compliance with treatment. Hence, there is a need for anti-diabetes agents that result in sustained improvements in glycemic control without hypoglycemia or weight gain and have a positive impact on patients QOL and thereby hopefully improve compliance. Incretin-based therapy is the latest addition to anti-diabetes treatments which addresses some of the shortcomings of older treatments. ⋯ Exenatide once-weekly is effective, well tolerated in patients with T2DM and should be a useful addition to the available range of anti-diabetes treatments.
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Patient Prefer Adher · Nov 2009
Therapeutic options in the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia.
Current theraputic options for the treatment of symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) are reviewed. Therapeutic options for mild lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), as defined by the American Urological Association, are generally treated medically. Moderate to severe LUTS can be treated medically or with surgical therapy. Current medical and surgical treatments for LUTS secondary to BPH are reviewed and evolving treatments are explored.
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Patient Prefer Adher · Nov 2009
Narcissistic rage: The Achilles' heel of the patient with chronic physical illness.
Based on the psychoanalytic reading of Homer's Iliad whose principal theme is "Achilles' rage" (the semi-mortal hero invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel, hence "Achilles' heel" has come to mean a person's principal weakness), we aimed to assess whether "narcissistic rage" has an impact on several psychosocial variables in patients with severe physical illness across time. In 878 patients with cancer, rheumatological diseases, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, and glaucoma, we assessed psychological distress (SCL-90 and GHQ-28), quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF), interpersonal difficulties (IIP-40), hostility (HDHQ), and defense styles (DSQ). Narcissistic rage comprised DSQ "omnipotence" and HDHQ "extraverted hostility". ⋯ We showed that, in patients with disease duration less than one year, narcissistic rage had a minor impact on psychosocial variables studied, indicating that the rage was rather part of a "normal" mourning process. On the contrary, in patients with longer disease duration, increased rates of narcissistic rage had a great impact on all outcome variables, and the opposite was true for patients with low rates of narcissistic rage, indicating that narcissistic rage constitutes actually an "Achilles' Heel" for patients with long-term physical illness. These findings may have important clinical implications.