Assessing pharmacy student experience with, knowledge of and attitudes towards harm reduction: illuminating barriers to pharmacist-led harm reduction

Abstract

BackgroundAs the burden from the opioid epidemic continues to increase in the state of Minnesota and across the nation, the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy seeks to design an innovative, comprehensive harm reduction curriculum in order to better train student pharmacists to serve the varied needs of the greater community. This study examines incoming individuals’ baseline knowledge of and attitudes toward harm reduction in order to better inform curriculum planning and to ultimately produce pharmacists capable of impacting the devastating effects of the opioid crisis.MethodsIncoming first-year pharmacy students took a survey focused on their knowledge of opioid overdose and the drug naloxone and also provided written reflections on their perceptions of harm reduction. Data was coded using consensual qualitative research (CQR) into appropriate domains.ResultsPharmacy students beginning their professional education revealed a lack of knowledge of proper response to an overdose situation, with 18.56% unfamiliar with the opioid antagonist drug naloxone. Close to 10% (9.58%) of students expressed unwillingness to do anything other than call an ambulance during an overdose event, while 8.98% were either unsure or felt that they would not feel compelled to do something to help. Qualitative coding revealed many barriers to students’ becoming capable harm reductionists, including lack of knowledge of substance use, addiction, and harm reduction, in addition to the presence of bias and stigma.ConclusionIn order to interrupt the cycle of misinformation and stigma within the larger community and the subgroup of medical providers, gaps in student knowledge must be addressed in meaningful, specific ways over the course of their pharmacy education. Evaluating baseline knowledge and beliefs informs the design of a flexible, action-oriented curriculum to produce well-trained pharmacists ready to engage in finding solutions to the opioid crisis.

A longitudinal study of naloxone opioid overdose awareness and reversal training for first-year medical students: specific elements require reinforcement

“…Thus, it is evident that intervening earlier and providing OOART to future healthcare providers during their education can help preemptively address gaps in knowledge or biases prior to beginning clinical practice [ 32 ]. Findings by Bascou et al [ 33 ] suggest statistically significant improvements in first-year medical students’ subjective attitude and objective knowledge measures following OOART.…”

Healthcare Professional Students’ Perspectives on Substance Use Disorders and Stigma: A Qualitative Study

“…While earlier studies were conducted with medical students or, separately with pharmacy students, these prior findings did not focus on the interprofessional perspective [ 24 , 25 ]. For example, a survey of interprofessional students (pharmacy and dentistry) highlighted the significance of understanding OUD and patient care [ 26 ].…”

Exploration of pharmacist comfort with harm reduction behaviors: Cross-sectional latent class analysis

“…In the pharmacy profession, harm reduction practices have included, but have not been limited to, naloxone dispensing and education for the prevention of overdose, 5e7 pharmacy syringe sales for the prevention of blood-borne infections and other health sequelae, 8,9 and efforts to educate pharmacists about substance use and substance use disorders. 10 A 2016 agreement by 94 schools and colleges of pharmacy supported the use of evidencebased prevention programs grounded in harm reduction, namely, prescription drug monitoring, prescriber education, medication-assisted treatment, safe drug disposal, and overdose prevention through naloxone. 11 Harm reduction pharmacy practice has also extended to sexual health, including dispensing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention 12 and offering pharmacy-based HIV testing.…”