ORIGINAL RESEARCH Pharmacists' Perception of their Roles and Involvement in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19 (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Pharmacology and Clinical Sciences, 2021
Objectives: To explore the role of Pharmacist in an epidemic, pandemic, and emergency public health with an emphasis on Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19). Methods: It is a new initiative services drove by national and international infection control, epidemic, pandemic, and medicine disaster guidelines. The projects formulated the latest project from pharmacy project guidelines, the international business model, and project management institution guidelines. Project management professionals steps write the initiative project. It consisted of several parts, including the initial phase, the planning phase, the execution phase, and the monitoring and controlling phase. Results: The Role of Pharmacists in the epidemic, pandemic, and emergency public health emphasizes COVID-19 with a defined vision, mission, and aims. The services had multiple benefits, including clinical and economical on patients, as illustrated in the review. The continuity of the project is assured by the risk management model description. Besides, the monitoring and controlling of the services as declared. The transition to operation project through the closing project stage is explored in the analysis. Conclusion: The Role of Pharmacists in the epidemic, pandemic, and emergency public health emphasizing COVID-19 is essential and beneficial. The Pharmacist might contribute to the infection control at the pharmacy and healthcare system, provide enough supply from medications, and be involved in public health education about epidemic or pandemic management; it is highly suggested to implement other counties in Saudi Arabia the world.
Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice
In the fight against COVID-19, frontline health workers have been vital to keeping the pandemic at bay, but recognition of individual professions’ efforts have been inconsistent at all levels. Pharmacists around the world have continued to provide direct patient care and perform frontline duties for their communities during this pandemic, but are often relegated to the background and overlooked when frontline workers are heralded. Community pharmacists are the most accessible healthcare practitioners, which is further proven during the pandemic as they continued to provide direct patient care despite restrictions imposed by the government due to the pandemic. Due to the inaccessibility of other healthcare practitioners during this time, community pharmacists have reduced the burden on the healthcare system by diverting the influx of patients away from hospitals through triaging and screening patients. Community pharmacists have played various roles in supporting the healthcare syste...
Global contributions of pharmacists during the COVID ‐19 pandemic
JACCP: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CLINICAL PHARMACY, 2020
Throughout the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) global pandemic, pharmacists were rarely mentioned as essential frontline health care providers by the news media, the public, or politicians. Around the world, pharmacists are working on the frontlines of health care every day providing essential health care services during the pandemic. Pharmacists are medication experts providing patient care in a variety of settings including hospitals, clinics, community pharmacies, long-term care, physician offices, and national and public health. In this paper, we describe how pharmacists from high and low-middle income countries contributed to essential patient care and well-being of the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the news media, the public, and politicians often overlooked pharmacists as essential frontline health care providers,
Extended Health Services of Pharmacists: Role in COVID-19 Management
2021
COVID-19 is creating a chaotic scenario all over the world. Due to the unavailability of approved therapy, the number of affected cases is escalating day by day. Different components of the healthcare system have been consistently working in different settings for its containment. Pharmacists are one of the healthcare experts, who are working on the front-line. In this review, we aimed to evaluate the activities of pharmacists as a healthcare professional in disasters such as; COVID-19 management. The focus on services offered by pharmacists has shifted from traditional dispensing and compounding to patient-specific over a period contributing to the quality use of medicine and primary care. Pharmacists are thus, considered essentially one of the main pillars of the healthcare team for the provision of extended health services (EHS), for instance, the effective management of COVID-19. They are working from community to clinical setting. Practicing tele-pharmacy health services, they ...
Pharmacy Education
Background: The contribution of the pharmacist in influencing health behaviours and raising awareness of the impact of self-medication (SM) is valuable. During the COVID-19 pandemic, SM was triggered by multiple factors driven by the fear of becoming infected. This study aimed to identify the determinants of SM during the outbreak, with a focus on the role of social media, and to determine areas where the active contribution of the pharmacist needs strengthening. Methods: A pilot cross-sectional study using snowball sampling was conducted in thirteen countries. Results: A total of 2369 participants with a mean age of 30.62±11.57 years were enrolled in the study. The determinants of SM were 1) sociodemographic characteristics, including developing countries (ORa= 0.670; 95%CI [0.49, 0.91]); 2) communication channels, where Facebook was the most used social media platform (ORa=1.624; 95%CI [1.29, 2.05]); and 3) content and sources of unverified information, i.e. television interviews ...
Pharmacists' knowledge and practice with respect to coronavirus disease 2019 caused by SARS-CoV-2
Background: The World Health Organisation in December, 2019 declared COVID-19 pandemic a disease of public health importance. It is however predicted by experts that the COVID-19 disease will eventually become an endemic disease, once enough people have developed immunity to COVID-19 either through vaccination or infection. The infection caused by the virus produce symptoms which necessitates professional healthcare. Pharmacists are frontline health care workers, often the first port of call by patients when unwell. Knowledge of pharmacists impart on patient care and public health dissemination of information. This study assessed knowledge and practice of pharmacists in Nigeria with regards to COVID-19 disease. Methods: A nationwide cross-sectional study was conducted among pharmacists in different practice settings in Nigeria using a snowball sampling technique. Pharmacists' demography, knowledge and practice due to COVID-19 pandemic was obtained with the aid of a semi-structured online questionnaire. Data collected were subjected to descriptive analysis. Each correct answer in the different subthemes generated was scored and transformed into ranges and percentiles. Results: A total of 386 pharmacists were included in the study, majority of whom practiced in the hospital and administrative settings (31.9%). There were more males (50.3%) than females. Over 90% of respondents had good knowledge of COVID-19 disease. The mean knowledge score for mode of transmission of the disease and symptoms produced by the infection were 5.35 0.9 and 11.26 1.9 respectively. Similarly, pharmacists had a good practice towards Covid-19 disease. Mean score for practice towards the disease was 6.43 0.9. Majority (75.9%) however, had to provide their personal protective equipment. Conclusion: These findings demonstrated that pharmacists had both good knowledge and practice towards the COVID-19 disease. This confirms pharmacists as a good resource for knowledge, which can be disseminated to patients and others during pandemics, or as the need arises.
Paradigm Shift in Practice: The Role of Pharmacists in COVID-19 Management
Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences, 2020
The continuously escalating burden of COVID-19 pandemic is challenging the health care systems around the world. The healthcare professionals of different specialties throughout the globe are working day and night for its proper mitigation. Pharmacists are healthcare professionals who are working on the frontline for the management of COVID-19 in different settings. In this review, we highlight the potential roles pharmacists can play for effective management of COVID-19. The collaborative effort of all professionals, including healthcare and other stakeholders is necessary for the appropriate management of such pandemic. Pharmacists, having expertise in clinical as well as administrative aspects, can play a pivotal role in extended health services (EHS) from prevention to eradication of COVID-19. Firm determination, inter- and intra- professional collaboration, and legislative support are mandatory for the rational practice of professionalism in such disasters.
Knowledge and attitudes of community pharmacists about COVID-19
Journal of Research in Pharmacy, 2021
Since the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), it has been considered an emergency situation that requires community pharmacists to be involved in direct patient care. The goal of this study is to collect information on community pharmacists' knowledge, attitudes, practices, and educational initiatives and pandemic preparedness, as well as to analyze challenges that may faced during the pandemic. Questionners from previous literature were used after translation and validation in a pilot study. Google forms were used to distribute the questionners to all the community pharmacies in Çanakkale, Turkey after ethic approval from Altınbaş University ethic committee. There were a total of 40 open-ended questions prepared to test knowledge attitudes presented as multiple choice or Likert scale questions. SPSS 20 software programme was used to analyze data. Among the all pharmacies, 60 pharmacists from 60 pharmacy were participated in the study. 70 % of those who took part in the study were women, and 30%were between the ages of 40 and 49. The mean score of knowledge based questions were 9.85/13, the majority of pharmacists were worried about being contaminated or infecting their families and were following the safety rules. The participants had certain gaps in their pandemic preparedness. To conclude, pharmacists have a moderate level of understanding of COVID-19 related topics, sufficient information about the pandemic, and they are strong enough to deal with the resulted obstacles. Although there are significant gaps and problems, the shortcomings can be solved by providing proper motivation and training to increase awareness.
Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 2021
Background: The pharmacy profession has an important role in the frontline healthcare response to COVID-19 across all settings. Objective: This study sought to explore the views and experiences of clinical pharmacists in relation to the provision of clinical pharmacy services during COVID-19. Methods: Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with pharmacists working in clinical roles in healthcare settings across Europe. Participants were recruited through professional organisations of clinical and hospitals pharmacists combined with a snowballing technique. The Pharmacy Emergency Preparedness and Response Framework and Disaster Preparedness Framework for pharmacy services were used to generate data which were analysed using the thematic framework method. Results: Twenty-two participants from 16 European countries described a range of measures to protect patients, public and healthcare staff against virus transmission including developing and disseminating educational materials. Most described their involvement in aspects of evidence provision such as facilitating clinical trials, gathering and appraising evidence and disseminating clinical information. Many hospital-based pharmacists were reassigned to new roles such as intensive care. Routine clinical services were extensively interrupted and remote forms of communication were used. Most were motivated by a strong sense of professionalism to continue delivering services. A number of facilitators and barriers to prevention, preparedness and response actions were identified which related to uptake of new roles, recognition of pharmacists roles in the healthcare team, information gathering, communication with patients and healthcare professionals, and provision of routine clinical services. Conclusions: Participants in this multinational qualitative study described a range of service adaptations and adoption of novel roles to prevent and mitigate the public health impact of the pandemic. The study findings may help to inform governments, public health agencies and healthcare systems in harnessing ongoing service provision and adapt to any future interruptions.
COVID-19 pharmacy student perceptions: pharmacists' impact during the COVID-19 pandemic
Signa Vitae, 2021
Pharmacists around the world are playing an active role in educating the public about COVID-19. First-year pharmacy students taking a healthcare course at Temple University in Philadelphia were asked to write papers based on the nature of a pharmacist’s contributions during the pandemic. 90% of the essays outlined the importance of community pharmacists, as they are the most accessible healthcare professional, providing immediate social interaction and drug expertise. They help minimize the need for hospital visits, limiting their time in public, therefore reducing their risk of becoming infected. For the pharmacies that have a drive-thru window, over-the-counter medications and other necessities can be sold to decrease the likelihood of transmission. Many students also proposed the opportunity for more leniency in prescribing power. Unless pharmacists are within a collaborative practice agreement, they cannot prescribe even maintenance medication. Due to the pandemic, it has become...