With recent advances in the separation of dispensing and prescribing drugs (Bungyo), the social role of community pharmacists has expanded. Therefore we carried out a questionnaire survey on the "image of community pharmacists" among patients/the public, physicians, and community pharmacists. The understanding of their role by community pharmacists differed slightly from that by patients/the public or physicians. Better mutual understanding among the three parties is necessary for smooth communication. Dispensing and handing over drugs to patients are not the only tasks required of community pharmacists. Evaluation of records of telephone drug counseling by the Japan Pharmaceutical Association revealed that many callers desired not only drug information but also the opinions and judgments of pharmacists. Providing drug information is an important task for community pharmacists. In addition, counseling on anxiety and worries about health may be necessary. Bungyo has also affected drug distribution. In this field, the role of community pharmacists in providing drug information may markedly change in the future.
To establish a system for collecting and reporting information from community pharmacists such as that on adverse eŠects, the Japan Pharmaceutical Association (JPA) conducts Drug Event Monitoring (DEM). In theˆscal year 2002, a survey was carried out to clarify the incidence of sleepiness due to antiallergic drugs. The investigated active ingredients were ebastine, fexofenadine hydrochloride, cetirizine hydrochloride, and loratadine. Community pharmacists asked the following question to patients who visited their pharmacies:``Have you ever become sleepy after taking this drug?'' During a 4-week survey period, reports of 94256 cases were collected. To evaluate the incidence of sleepiness, we analyzed cases in which reports showed alleged absence of concomitant oral drugs, and drug use in conformity with the dose and method described in package inserts. The incidence of sleepiness was signiˆcantly diŠerent among the drugs (x 2 -test, p<0.001). The observed incidences of sleepiness due to the drugs (8.8-20.5%) were higher than those described in each package insert (1.8-6.35%). This may be because an active question was used (``Have you ever become sleepy after taking this drug?''). Active intervention by pharmacists may be useful for collecting more information on improvement in the QOL of patients and safety. In addition, the pharmacists were asked to report events other than``sleepiness'' in the free description column of the report. Some symptoms not described in the package inserts were reported, suggesting that DEM may lead to the discovery of new adverse eŠects. These results suggest that community pharmacists have a good opportunity to collect information in DEM, and safety information such as that on adverse eŠects can be obtained from pharmacies.
To evaluate diŠerences in viewpoints and awareness between patients with and without a``family pharmacy'', we performed a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire consisted of 21 questions including``I often read books and journals about health.'' and``Patients have the right of being informed of the medical treatment they receive''. The degree of applicability was selected among 6 grades(``deˆnitely inapplicable''-``deˆnitely applicable''). The subjects were classiˆed into 3 groups``without a family pharmacy'',``with a regular pharmacy for each hospital/clinic'' and``with a family pharmacy'', and factor analysis was performed. As a result, 5 factors were extracted in each group. However, the order of the 2nd-4th factors diŠered among the 3 groups. Paying attention to these diŠerences, we found that patients`w ith a family pharmacy'' have resolved doubts about or dissatisfaction with medical care to some extent.
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