BackgroundIn the USA prescription opioids, which are misused or abused by some patients, are often obtained from pharmacies. However, screening and brief intervention (SBI) for prescription opioid misuse has not been tested in this setting. The goal of this project was to assess pharmacists' attitudes and motivation towards delivering SBI for prescription opioid abuse. Methods A descriptive cross-sectional online survey was administered to pharmacists in Utah and Texas, USA. The survey assessed pharmacists': (1) interest in addressing prescription opioid abuse;(2) beliefs about whether pharmacies may be effective locations to deliver SBI; and (3) potential education or training needs to facilitate SBI service delivery. Results A total of 739 pharmacists responded to the survey. Despite demographic differences, responses to the survey items were similar between Utah and Texas. The highest levels of agreement for survey subscales indicated that: (1) screening and intervention resources would increase pharmacists' motivation to deliver SBI; (2) pharmacists were interested in helping patients who misuse; and (3) pharmacists possess sufficient opioid knowledge and confidence in practice to address prescription abuse. Roughly half of pharmacists that responded agreed that SBI is a service they should deliver. Conclusion Pharmacists are interested in helping those who misuse prescription opioids and believe pharmacies may be settings in which SBI services can be tested and delivered. These results require replication to assess if they portray pharmacists' views generally. If replicated, future research could examine methods of screening and intervention in the pharmacy setting for prescription opioid misuse.
Rates of ethanol clearance were measured at rest and with acute exercise in four groups of female Sprague-Dawley rats. Two groups were trained to run on a motor-driven rodent treadmill at 27 m/min, 1 h/day, 5 days/wk and were given a nutritionally balanced liquid diet; one of these groups received 35% calories as ethanol whereas in the other, sucrose was isocalorically substituted for the ethanol. Appropriate sedentary and nonethanol controls were also used. Clearance of a 1.75-g/kg ethanol dose injected intraperitoneally was determined by measuring ethanol levels in the blood each hour and utilizing these values in the Widmark equation (R. Teschke, F. Moreno, and A. Petrides, Biochem. Pharmacol. 30: 1745-1751, 1981) for calculating whole-body ethanol clearance. Rates of ethanol clearance were determined for each rat at 4 and 7 wk of training. The clearance tests at 4 wk included a 60-min period of running exercise, whereas the tests 3 wk later were conducted at rest. The results indicate that both acute exercise and exercise training can increase rates of in vivo ethanol clearance. In addition, the chronic exercise appeared to increase in vitro ethanol metabolism by hepatic microsomes without altering in vitro hepatic alcohol dehydrogenase activity.
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