Pharmacists are the preferred providers of drug information to consumers due to their medicine expertise, accessibility and availability. And family doctors themselves recognize their vital role in disseminating this type of information. This is one of the results of an Australian study, published in Bmc Health Services Research which aimed to determine the attitude of consumers, GPs and community pharmacists in relation to the system known as Consumer Medicine Information available in Australia for all medicines by prescription. A tool, the researchers state, little used by professionals despite consumers wanting to disseminate information on drugs. The study, conducted through questionnaires, showed that GPs and pharmacists are the preferred dispensers of information, better if verbally than written, with a prevalence of pharmacists, recognized by local doctors themselves as the best source. This latter aspect is of particular importance, as confirmed by the president of the Order of Pharmacists Andrea Mandelli. «This study confirms what we observe every day in professional practice, namely the appreciation of the work of the pharmacist, when it comes to informing the citizen about the characteristics of the drugs that have been prescribed or to which he uses for self-medication. What the study adds, and it is important» underlines Mandelli «is that the general practitioners themselves consider the intervention of the pharmacist to be positive. The fact that the study comes from Australia, a country in which the role has been expanding for some time in collaboration with doctors in the area, confirms that it is a synergy that works. I would add that the Order of Pharmacists of Milan, also on the occasion of Expo 2015, organized the experimentation of a web-based system – Doctor Safim – which allows the patient to be provided, at the end of the interview, with personalized indications in written form» concludes President Fofi.
Marco Malagutti
BMC Health Services Research 2014, 14:183
Tuesday, 06 May 2014 – Pharmacist
