Objective To systematically review feedback from pharmacy users on their perceptions and experiences of health-related advice and services provided from community pharmacies.Methods The focus of the review was community pharmacy activities in relation to promoting health and well-being, preventing ill-health and maintaining health. Searches were conducted for peerreviewed (international) and non-peer-reviewed (UK) research. Electronic databases searched included MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts; hand searches of key journals and conference abstracts, key informants. Key informants in the UK were contacted to identify unpublished studies. The inclusion period was 1990 onwards.Data extraction and synthesis Data were abstracted into a matrix by one author with a sample checked by a second. The Health Development Agency's Evidence Base 2000 standards and the evidence categories used by the Department of Health in the National Service Frameworks were applied to each item.Main results Seven peer reviewed papers and 13 non-peer reviewed reports were identified for inclusion in the review. Consumer usage of pharmacies is almost universal with prescription supplies and purchase of over the counter medicines predominating. Evidence shows that not only is usage low for general health advice, but that pharmacists are perceived as Ôdrugs experts' rather than experts on health and illness. Emergency hormonal contraception and head lice management schemes have been well received. There is a need to consider privacy and confidentiality surrounding advice giving.
The peer-reviewed literature demonstrates the contribution of community pharmacy-based services to the reduction of risk behaviours and risk factors for CHD. The evidence supports the wider provision of smoking cessation and lipid management through community pharmacies. Health commissioners and planners can use the findings of this review to incorporate community pharmacy based health development activities into local health services. Further research is needed into the contribution of community pharmacy to disease detection and case finding as part of local public health strategies.
Objective To systematically review, summarise and evaluate the published evidence from 1990–2001 relating to pharmacists' attitudes towards and perceptions of their role in improving the public's health.
Methods Electronic databases searched were MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts. Hand searches were undertaken of a number of relevant journals and conference abstracts. Studies on pharmacy and health education, health promotion, public health, smoking cessation, diet, body weight, and coronary heart disease were identified. All relevant studies with an English language abstract were included. Two of the authors separately examined the lists of titles and abstracts of papers from the searches and then compared inclusion/ exclusion lists and resolved any differences by discussion. Two approaches were used to assess the quality of the evidence and each study was allocated an evidence grade. Data were abstracted into a matrix and a narrative report constructed to synthesise the evidence.
Key findings The search identified 12 studies (nine from the UK and three from other countries), all of which involved community pharmacists. Pharmacists attach a high degree of importance to health improvement activities. They are more comfortable with activities that are related to medicines and need support to extend their range of health‐related work. Pharmacists' advice is more likely to be reactive than proactive; their concerns about being “intrusive” in offering potentially unwelcome health advice predisposes to a reactive stance. While dispensing duties were widely reported by pharmacists as a key barrier to greater involvement in activities that improve the public's health, the review of the evidence showed that perceptions and attitudes are also key to pharmacists' behaviour in relation to these activities.
Conclusion Community pharmacists' activities in improving the public's health centre around medicines. This is unsurprising, as dispensing and sale of medicines constitute a pharmacist's core business, and are the areas that they are perceived to be expert in and in which they have received the most training. If pharmacists are to contribute to wider public health activities, ways need to be found of extending their sphere of activity. The review findings have implications for those involved in education and training of pharmacists at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Our cybersecurity workforce needs surpass our ability to meet them. These needs could be mitigated by developing relevant curricula that prioritize the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) most important to cybersecurity jobs. To identify the KSAs needed for performing cybersecurity jobs, we administered survey interviews to 44 cyber professionals at the premier hacker conferences Black Hat 2016 and DEF CON 24. Questions concerned 32 KSAs related to cyber defense. Participants rated how important each KSA was to their job and indicated where they had learned that KSA. Fifteen of these KSAs were rated as being of higher-than-neutral importance. Participants also answered open-ended questions meant to uncover additional KSAs that are important to cyber-defense work. Overall, the data suggest that KSAs related to networks, vulnerabilities, programming, and interpersonal communication should be prioritized in cybersecurity curricula.
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