If implemented on a population basis, the addition of pharmacists to health care teams would lead to major reductions in morbidity and health care costs.

The majority of the general public is willing to donate a sample to a biobank. The willingness is mainly driven by altruism, and depends on the public being well-informed and having trust in experts and institutions.

BackgroundSafety culture assessment is increasingly recognized as an important component in healthcare quality improvement, also in pharmacies. One of the most commonly used and rigorously validated tools to measure safety culture is the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire; SAQ. This study presents the validation of the SAQ for use in Swedish pharmacies. The psychometric properties of the translated questionnaire are presentedMethodsThe original English language version of the SAQ was translated and adapted to the Swedish context and distributed by e-mail. The survey was carried out on a national basis, covering all 870 Swedish community pharmacies. In total, 7,244 questionnaires were distributed. Scale psychometrics were analysed using Cronbach alphas and intercorrelations among the scales. Multiple group confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted.ResultsSAQ data from 828 community pharmacies in Sweden, including 4,090 (60.22%) pharmacy personnel out of 6,683 eligible respondents, were received. There were 252 (28.97%) pharmacies that met the inclusion criteria of having at least 5 respondents and a minimum response rate of 60% within that pharmacy.The coefficient alpha value for each of the SAQ scales ranged from .72 to .89. The internal consistency results, in conjunction with the confirmatory factor analysis results, demonstrate that the Swedish translation of the SAQ has acceptable to good psychometric properties. Perceptions of the pharmacy (Teamwork Climate, Job Satisfaction, Perceptions of Management, Safety Climate, and Working Conditions) were moderately to highly correlated with one another whereas attitudes about stress (Stress Recognition) had only low correlations with other factors. Perceptions of management showed the most variability across pharmacies (SD = 26.66), whereas Stress Recognition showed the least (SD = 18.58). There was substantial variability ranging from 0% to 100% in the percent of positive scores for each of the factors across the 252 pharmacies.ConclusionsThe Swedish translation of the SAQ demonstrates acceptable construct validity, for capturing the frontline perspective of safety culture of community pharmacy staff. The psychometric results reported here met or exceeded standard guidelines, which is consistent with previous studies using the SAQ in other healthcare settings and other languages.

The majority of the Swedish general public prefer general consent, and are thus willing to delegate some decisions to the RECs. However, preferences for information and consent procedures depend on the context, e.g. the risks for the donor and the purpose of the research. If feasible, procedures should be differentiated according to the preferences of individual donors, thus protecting the interests of both the minority and the majority.

The SEIQoL-DW appears to be a feasible and valid instrument. The lack of association between the Index score and health, functional status, demographic and clinical parameters may be explained by the instrument's focus on global QoL and by that of the idiographic measurement approach reflecting the capacity of a patient to value domains other than health in life, despite having health problems. Nevertheless, continued psychometric evaluation in large populations with a longitudinal design is recommended.

When prescriptionists and pharmacists apply the pharmaceutical care concept and work with PMRs, the patients are more likely to meet confident professionals that are more aware of the individual behind the drug therapy. This will hopefully contribute to informed, motivated medicine users that feel secure in their interactions with their pharmacy and receive, not only drugs, but treatment support. For such a service to be effective, however, it is vital to ensure that the doctors are fully co-operative.

Patients and providers made several suggestions for improving everyday life. Future research needs to focus on how to achieve preference-matched shared decision-making, or concordance, between patients and health-care providers, taking different perspectives into account and how to evaluate the effect of the final, clinical, economical and humanistic outcomes of care and treatment. More seamless care and an increasingly shared understanding between patients and providers of their values, expectations and preferences for care and treatment may contribute to better health and better daily lives for patients.

Qualified and motivated persons with no obvious physical limitations practised imperfect self-application of a test cream mimicking a therapeutic cream product. As much as 31% of the skin surface was neglected. Sites especially prone to nonapplication were identified. This might imply that dermatological patients on long-term self-treatment may practise local application very poorly, a problem of major therapeutic and economic importance. A fluorescent test cream can be used for research, and as an educational tool in the training of dermatological patients on how to apply local treatment.