Julia Fiona-Maree Gilmartin

Taking the guesswork out of supplying multicompartment compliance aids: do pharmacists require further guidance on medication stability?

The purpose of this article is to identify information that is currently available to pharmacists concerning the stability of medications repackaged into multicompartment compliance aids (MCAs). This article explores the potential risks associated with repackaging medications into MCAs for pharmacists who supply and patients who use them.

Dementia, cognitive impairment and proton pump inhibitor therapy: A systematic review

Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are among the most widely used medications worldwide. Dementia is an increasingly common cause of disability in older populations. Recent studies have suggested an increased risk of cognitive impairment and dementia diagnosis among people who consume PPIs. This systematic review explores dementia, cognitive impairment, and the use of PPIs.

Depressive symptoms are associated with analgesic use in people with Alzheimer's disease: Kuopio ALSOVA study.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) such as depression may be associated with pain, which according to the literature may be inadequately recognized and managed in this population. This study aimed to identify the factors associated with analgesic use in persons with AD; in particular, how AD severity, functional status, neuropsychiatric symptoms of AD, co-morbidities and somatic symptoms are associated with analgesic use. 236 community-dwelling persons with very mild or mild AD at baseline, and their caregivers, were interviewed over five years as part of the prospective ALSOVA study. Generalized Estimating Equations (GEEs) were used to estimate unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for the factors associated with analgesic use over a five year follow-up. The proportion of persons with AD using any analgesic was low (13.6%) at baseline and remained relatively constant during the follow-up (15.3% at Year 5). Over time, the most prevalent analgesic changed from non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (8.1% of persons with AD at Year 1) to acetaminophen (11.1% at Year 5). Depressive symptoms (measured by the Beck Depression Inventory, BDI) were independently associated with analgesic use, after effects of age, gender, education, AD severity, comorbidities and somatic symptoms were taken into account. For every one unit increase in BDI, the odds of analgesic use increased by 4% (OR = 1.04, 95% confidence interval CI = 1.02-1.07). Caregiver depressive symptoms were not statistically significantly associated with analgesic use of the person with AD. Depressive symptoms were significantly associated with analgesic use during the five year follow-up period. Possible explanations warranting investigation are that persons with AD may express depressive symptoms as painful somatic complaints, or untreated pain may cause depressive symptoms. Greater awareness of the association between depressive symptoms and analgesic use may lead to safer and more effective prescribing for these conditions.

Exploring factors that contribute to dose administration aid incidents and identifying quality improvement strategies: the views of pharmacy and nursing staff

Dose administration aids (DAAs) organise medicines that have been repacked according to the day of the week and time of the day in which they must be taken. In Australia, DAAs are commonly prepared by pharmacy staff for residential aged care facility (RACF) medicine administration. Although the limited available literature indicates that DAA incidents of inaccurate or unsuitable medicine repacking do occur, there is a paucity of qualitative research identifying quality improvement strategies for this service.

Improving Australian care home medicine supply services: evaluation of a quality improvement intervention

The study aims to determine the impact of a quality improvement intervention on how accurately and suitably medicines are supplied to residents of residential aged‐care facilities (RACFs).

Using ethnographic approaches to explore care home medicine management systems

It is vitally important that ethnographic approaches to social pharmacy research are not overlooked for other research methods that might be considered more economical in terms of cost and time. Ethnography can be defined as “. the study of social interactions, behaviors, and perceptions that occur within groups, teams, organizations, and communities.” Key features of ethnographic research include: exploring a particular social phenomenon in a small number of cases, rather than setting out to test hypotheses; working with data that have not been coded at the point of data collection; and analyzing data by interpreting the meanings and functions of human actions. To understand the interactions between health care workers and health care systems the researcher must immerse themselves in the work environment of interest. Only then can they truly appreciate the reality, and gain an accurate understanding, of how people interact with systems. The ethnographic approach is important when understanding staff and system interactions in the care home setting because of the complex work environment. The interplay between the care home residential environment and its health care function, and the interactions between residents, health professionals, systems, protocols and regulations can only be comprehensively understood when viewed in real life. These observations can provide important contextual detail for researchers to understand why problems occur and

Benefits of enhancing international mobility of pharmacy students

Academics at University College London (UCL) School of Pharmacy have recognized the benefits of enhancing the international mobility of undergraduate pharmacy students and have a history of providing research experience to visiting international students with the expectation that it will contribute

Taking the guesswork out of supplying multicompartment compliance AIDS

The purpose of this article is to identify information that is currently available to pharmacists concerning the stability of medications repackaged into multicompartment compliance aids (MCAs). This article explores the potential risks associated with repackaging medications into MCAs for pharmacists who supply and patients who use them.

Taking the guesswork out of supplying multicompartment compliance aids: do pharmacists require further guidance on medication stability?: Stability and multicompartment compliance aids

The purpose of this article is to identify information that is currently available to pharmacists concerning the stability of medications repackaged into multicompartment compliance aids (MCAs). This article explores the potential risks associated with repackaging medications into MCAs for pharmacists who supply and patients who use them.

Informed, tailored, and targeted pharmacy support for nurses administering medicines in care homes

Care home nurses could benefit from more informed, tailored, and targeted pharmacy support when undertaking medicine administration. Pharmacists could use the principles of ethnographic research methods to inform, tailor, and target the medicine administration support they provide. It should be determined if existing pharmacy support has been informed following comprehensive observations of care home medicine administration.