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Evidence-based self-medication: development and evaluation of a professional newsletter concept for community pharmacies.

ABSTRACT: Background Providing evidence-based care is recognized as a key competence for all healthcare professionals. In order to support community pharmacists in evidence-based self-medication counseling, the umbrella organization of German pharmacists initiated the development of a nationwide concept. The key element of the concept was a professional newsletter that should help pharmacists incorporate research findings into their daily counseling practice. Objective To develop, implement and evaluate the professional newsletter concept. Setting German community pharmacies. Method Clinical pharmacists from a German university compiled and synthesized clinical trial data in a professional newsletter that would supply community pharmacists with evidence-based information on common over-the-counter medicines as well as instructions for searching and appraising scientific literature. The electronic newsletter was offered to interested community pharmacists free of charge, once or twice a month, after they signed up for a subscription. About one year after the publication of the first newsletter issue, the subscribers were invited to take part in an anonymous cross-sectional online survey. In all, 21 newsletter issues were published through the end of the survey period. Main outcome measure Perceived value of the professional newsletter with 10 predefined objectives. Results A total of 1975 persons subscribed to the professional newsletter. Of those, 150 persons working in community pharmacies completed the survey. Most of them perceived the synthesized information as 'useful' (81-95%). They attributed positive changes in knowledge (89%), skills (87-91%), awareness (85%), and motivation (67-77%) to the newsletter. However, almost half of them (43%) found it difficult to incorporate reading the newsletter in their everyday working life. Free-text feedback suggested that further modifications should be considered to facilitate a better integration of the newsletter into everyday pharmacy practice. Conclusion A nationwide provided professional newsletter can play a vital part in supporting pharmacists in evidence-based self-medication counseling. However, the practicability of such a newsletter needs to be further improved and the newsletter should be accompanied by additional measures.

SUBMITTER: Moritz K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7878231 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Evidence-based self-medication: development and evaluation of a professional newsletter concept for community pharmacies.

Moritz Katharina K Seiberth Jasmin Mina JM Schiek Susanne S Bertsche Thilo T

International journal of clinical pharmacy 20200730 1

Background Providing evidence-based care is recognized as a key competence for all healthcare professionals. In order to support community pharmacists in evidence-based self-medication counseling, the umbrella organization of German pharmacists initiated the development of a nationwide concept. The key element of the concept was a professional newsletter that should help pharmacists incorporate research findings into their daily counseling practice. Objective To develop, implement and evaluate t ...[more]

PMID: 32728996

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Project description:BACKGROUND: Inter-professional learning has been promoted as the solution to many clinical management issues. One such issue is the correct use of asthma inhaler devices. Up to 80% of people with asthma use their inhaler device incorrectly. The implications of this are poor asthma control and quality of life. Correct inhaler technique can be taught, however these educational instructions need to be repeated if correct technique is to be maintained. It is important to maximise the opportunities to deliver this education in primary care. In light of this, it is important to explore how health care providers, in particular pharmacists and general medical practitioners, can work together in delivering inhaler technique education to patients, over time. Therefore, there is a need to develop and evaluate effective inter-professional education, which will address the need to educate patients in the correct use of their inhalers as well as equip health care professionals with skills to engage in collaborative relationships with each other. METHODS: This mixed methods study involves the development and evaluation of three modules of continuing education, Model 1, Model 2 and Model 3. A fourth group, Model 4, acting as a control.Model 1 consists of face-to-face continuing professional education on asthma inhaler technique, aimed at pharmacists, general medical practitioners and their practice nurses.Model 2 is an electronic online continuing education module based on Model 1 principles.Model 3 is also based on asthma inhaler technique education but employs a learning intervention targeting health care professional relationships and is based on sociocultural theory.This study took the form of a parallel group, repeated measure design. Following the completion of continuing professional education, health care professionals recruited people with asthma and followed them up for 6 months. During this period, inhaler device technique training was delivered and data on patient inhaler technique, clinical and humanistic outcomes were collected. Outcomes related to professional collaborative relationships were also measured. DISCUSSION: Challenges presented included the requirement of significant financial resources for development of study materials and limited availability of validated tools to measure health care professional collaboration over time.

Project description:Guidelines encourage relevant information exchange between pharmaceutical staff and patients during self-medication consultation. Thereby, assessing the patient's situation and providing information is crucial for patient safety. So far, limited studies have investigated this information exchange, particularly in Germany. We aimed to assess the attitude towards and the current practice of guideline-recommended information exchange in German community pharmacies. In total, twelve guideline-recommended parameters were predefined for gathering patient-related information and for the provision of information. These information exchange parameters were evaluated in two parts: Firstly, in a self-report of pharmaceutical staff via an online questionnaire to assess the reported importance, difficulty and frequency of the parameters as well as barriers to their implementation; secondly, in a non-participant observation in five pharmacies to evaluate the actual consultation practice. In the self-report, all parameters were rated by more than 76% of 1068 participants as important. 'Concurrent medication' was determined to be the most difficult parameter to address (54%). All parameters of information gathering were rated to be addressed during routine counselling by at least 70% of the respondents. Parameters of information provision were all rated to be addressed by at least 45%. 'Lack of patient's interest' was identified as the most frequent barrier to appropriate counselling (84%). During the observation, the information gathering parameters were each addressed between 8 to 63% in the consultations, parameters of information provision between 3 to 34%. Despite broad acceptance, the guideline parameters of information exchange were comparatively little addressed during the actual routine care. This might be due to a perceived 'lack of patient's interest' in counselling. Our results suggest to scrutinize whether patients are in fact not interested in counselling and to further explore how the positive intention of pharmaceutical staff towards information exchange can be further translated into everyday practice.

Project description:IntroductionAutomated dose dispensing (ADD) is being introduced in several countries and the use of this technology is expected to increase as a growing number of elderly people need to manage their medication at home. ADD aims to improve medication safety and treatment adherence, but it may introduce new safety issues. This descriptive study provides insight into the nature and consequences of medication incidents related to ADD, as reported by healthcare professionals in community pharmacies and hospitals.MethodsThe medication incidents that were submitted to the Dutch Central Medication incidents Registration (CMR) reporting system were selected and characterized independently by two researchers.Main outcome measuresPerson discovering the incident, phase of the medication process in which the incident occurred, immediate cause of the incident, nature of incident from the healthcare provider's perspective, nature of incident from the patient's perspective, and consequent harm to the patient caused by the incident.ResultsFrom January 2012 to February 2013 the CMR received 15,113 incidents: 3,685 (24.4%) incidents from community pharmacies and 11,428 (75.6%) incidents from hospitals. Eventually 1 of 50 reported incidents (268/15,113 = 1.8%) were related to ADD; in community pharmacies more incidents (227/3,685 = 6.2%) were related to ADD than in hospitals (41/11,428 = 0.4%). The immediate cause of an incident was often a change in the patient's medicine regimen or relocation. Most reported incidents occurred in two phases: entering the prescription into the pharmacy information system and filling the ADD bag.ConclusionA proportion of incidents was related to ADD and is reported regularly, especially by community pharmacies. In two phases, entering the prescription into the pharmacy information system and filling the ADD bag, most incidents occurred. A change in the patient's medicine regimen or relocation was the immediate causes of an incident.

Dataset Information

Evidence-based self-medication: development and evaluation of a professional newsletter concept for community pharmacies.

Publications

Evidence-based self-medication: development and evaluation of a professional newsletter concept for community pharmacies.

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