Pharmacists’ acceptability of a men’s mental health promotion program using the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability

Abstract

Introduction Community pharmacists are accessible, knowledgeable, and capable of providing mental health promotion and care in communities. This may not be a role that is recognized by the public, and men in particular. Differences between men and women exist in help seeking practices. Headstrong–Taking Things Head-On is a men's mental health promotion program for community pharmacies that was designed to increase the capacity of community pharmacists in caring for men with lived experience of mental illness and addictions. The program's core components included signage in pharmacies, education and training for pharmacists, and a website for use with patients. Methods We applied the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability as the coding scheme to pharmacists' qualitative interviews to examine the acceptability of Headstrong for pharmacists. Results Nine pharmacists consented to participate and all chose telephone interviews. With the exceptions of ethicality, affective attitude, and opportunity costs, all components from the TFA were coded in each of the nine transcripts. The most frequently coded constructs were perceived effectiveness of the intervention, burden, and self-efficacy. These were coded at least 20 times. The remaining categories ethicality, intervention coherence, affective attitude, and opportunity costs were coded between 11 to 17 times. Pharmacists' perceptions of the effectiveness of the program was mixed. The overall burden was perceived to be low, but opportunity costs appear to have limited the participation of some pharmacists in the program. Conclusion Use of the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability as a coding scheme for qualitative data from community pharmacists in a men's mental health program was helpful for identifying issues with the program that may require redesign (e.g., signage). Program design should consider how services are advertised in the pharmacy setting, how personal values of pharmacists influence intervention coherence, and whether minimizing the burden of an intervention negates issues related to opportunity costs.

Psychiatric Pharmacy: New Role of Pharmacists in Mental Health

“…10%-30% of MDD patients do not improve or show a partial response coupled with functional impairment, poor quality of life, suicide ideation and attempts, self-injurious behavior, and a high relapse rate [28]. Pharmacists are highly accessible health care professionals, trusted by the public and have regular interactions with consumers that suffer acute mental illness [29,30]. Medication counselling provided by community pharmacists is an important source of medication information for patients and their caregivers.…”

Acceptability of a Prime Vendor System in Public Healthcare Facilities in Tanzania

“…Acceptability usually looks at the introduction of a new device/technology 15,38,39 or innovative ways to improve service delivery. [40][41][42][43] Acceptability assessment can take place 'before' the implementation of the healthcare intervention; during the intervention period, 'concurrent assessment, ' or after the implementation, 'post-intervention. ' 22,23 The present study has been done after implementation of Jazia PVS as a 'post-intervention assessment.…”

Closing the gaps in defining and conceptualising acceptability of healthcare: A synthesis review and thematic content analysis

“…Many authors agree that one of the best ways of approaching acceptability is from patients, healthcare providers or health system managers or policy makers' perspectives [1,2,25]. Few articles clearly describe how acceptability could be approached from health system managers and health policy makers' perspectives.…”

“…Most articles described acceptability from the patient's perceptions [1,2,25]. We propose using stakeholder analysis and actor-network theories to best answer the question: Acceptability to whom?…”

“…Though acceptability is widely believed to reflect patient, provider and health systems or policy views [2,25], almost all frameworks have approached acceptability of healthcare from the patients perspective [1,2,5]. Figure 1 illustrates our conceptual framework of acceptibility which is based on our proposed definition of acceptability.…”