Accessing rural populations: role of the community pharmacist in a breast and cervical cancer screening programme

Abstract

Results suggest that the use of independent community pharmacies in the rural setting can be an effective method of recruiting women into public health programmes.

Promoting the early detection of cancer: A systematic review of community pharmacy-based education and screening interventions

“…All ten studies reported outcome measures relating to the domain of behavioural determinants; increasing awareness and knowledge (n=7) [16-20, 24, 25]; recommending referral (n=3) [21][22][23]. Outcomes of four studies were identified as influencing patient's behavior [16,17,19,20]. Physiological and biochemical outcomes were measured in four studies (FOB n=2 [19,24], PSA n=1 [16], Pap/HPV DNA n=1 [21]) and health outcomes (cancer diagnosis) in two [16,19].…”

“…Study locations were the US (n=5) [17][18][19][20]24], Australia (n=2) [22,23], Germany (n=1) [16], Italy (n=1) [21] and South Korea(n=1) [25]. The number of participants included in the studies ranged from 91 [23] to 14,041 [21], while the duration including follow up ranged from four weeks [19] to two years [16].…”

“…Three of the studies targeted specific populations: one focused on women living in medically underserved communities [20], one on women who were non-responders to a screening invitation [21], and one on men with untreated or uncontrolled health risks or who were due a physical examination [17].…”

“…Types of cancer targeted by the studies included colorectal cancer (n=4) [19,[22][23][24]; colorectal and prostate cancer (n=1) [17]; prostate cancer (n=1) [16]; breast cancer (n=2) [18,25]; cervical cancer (n=1) [21]; and breast and cervical cancer (n=1) [20,21].…”

“…The global quality scores, based on the individual component scores, divided the studies to strong (n=1) [16], moderate (n=5) [17][18][19][20][21] and weak (n=4) [22][23][24][25]. The study components most commonly assessed as weak were confounders and the data collection methodology.…”