Dermatitis in community pharmacies: a survey on italian pharmacists’ management and implications on corticophobia

Abstract

Community pharmacists represent an important resource for the promotion of a safer and more effective self-management of common skin diseases, as well as the provision of educational support on therapies prescribed by clinicians, ultimately improving patients’ adherence. In this study, a semi-structured survey was administered to 154 Italian community pharmacists, in order to acquire information on their counseling activity on dermatological disorders. Collected data provide an overview on the frequency and methodology of counseling offered in Italian community pharmacies, identifying knowledge gaps and misbeliefs. In particular, an overall negative opinion on topical corticosteroid therapy emerged among pharmacists, unveiling a phenomenon previously described as corticophobia. Starting from this observation, we discuss the risks for patients’ adherence, associated with corticophobia among pharmacists. Lastly, we briefly report on the main tools desired by pharmacists to improve their education on dermatology, envisioning their implementation with the aim of a more effective counseling.

Practices and Perceptions of Community Pharmacists in the Management of Atopic Dermatitis: A Systematic Review and Thematic Synthesis

“…Most studies (n = 19) were conducted in OECD countries: six studies were conducted in the United Kingdom [34][35][36][37][38][39]; two studies were conducted in each of Australia [40,41], Netherlands [42,43], Sweden [44,45], and Japan [46,47]; and one study was conducted in each of Portugal [48], France [49], Germany [50], Belgium [51], and Italy [52]. Moreover, one study was conducted in a GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) nation, i.e., the United Arab Emirates [53].…”

“…A majority of studies (n = 20) were published in the period 2011-2021 and reported quantitative findings (n = 18). Of these studies, 14 were cross-sectional studies [37,39,40,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56] and 4 were pre-and post-education intervention studies [34,41,43,44]. Three were qualitative research [35,42,45].…”

“…Knowledge of corticosteroids was a significant theme, having FTU-and pharmacist corticophobia-related sub-themes, and it was mentioned in 14 studies [36,[41][42][43][44][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54]. Pharmacists were shown to lack knowledge of TC potency in the literature (CERQualhigh) [36,53,54].…”

“…Corticophobia was identified in the literature among pharmacists (CERQualhigh) [36,42,43,49,51,52]. A Belgian study that compared practitioners found that corticophobia was higher among pharmacists than paediatricians, general practitioners, and dermatologists (CERQual-low) [51].…”

“…Many studies demonstrated that pharmacists often continued their dermatology education after graduation (CERQual-moderate) [36,37,39,40,49,52,53,55]. Pharmacists were eager to expand their dermatological expertise, which they acquired by joining educational programs or training sessions held by drug manufacturers, attending conferences and branch meetings, or reading journal articles and e-bulletins (CERQual-moderate) [35][36][37]49].…”