Presented by: Amna Saeed1st semester

Mphil(Pharmacy Practice)University College of PharmacyThe University of Punjab, Lahore

MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY&

PHARMACY PRACTICE

PHARMACIST THENPreparing,Manufacturing,Dispensing the drugs.

Traditionally, chemistry, biochemistry, physics and physiology formed Pharmacy’s core knowledge base

PHARMACIST NOW“THE EXTENDED ROLE”

• pharmacists interacting directly with the public, • offering a range of services including diagnostic testing, • health care advice, • information, • therapeutic recommendations, • directions and instructions,• in addition to ensuring that people receive the

appropriate medication and understand how to use their medicines correctly.

EMERGENCE OF “PHARMACY PRACTICE”• The realisation within the pharmacy profession that its members were being increasingly

called upon to respond to symptoms, give medical advice, ‘counsel’ patients and disseminate health education messages has resulted in the concept of ‘pharmacy practice’.

• Pharmacy practice is an all-embracing term which describes a wide range of activities involved in the provision of pharmaceutical services.

• Consequently, it incorporates not only clinical pharmacy and the legal aspects of practice, but also various perspectives which assist in our understanding of the wider social context in which pharmaceutical services are delivered.

• Topics within the academic subject of pharmacy practice now include 1. communication skills, 2. medicines use,3. health economics, 4. pharmacoepidemiology and5. pharmacovigilance.

PHARMACY PRACTICE-W.H.O

•  pharmacy practice aim is defined as to "contribute to health improvement and to help patients with health problems to make the best use of their medicines."

• GPP is defined as "the practice of pharmacy that responds to the needs of the people who use the pharmacists’ services to provide optimal, evidence-based care. To support this practice it is essential that there be an established national framework of quality standards and guidelines."

GOOD PHARMACY PRACTICE-W.H.O

GPP are organised around 4 major roles for pharmacists• Role 1: Prepare, obtain, store, secure, distribute,

administer, dispense and dispose of medical products

• Role 2: Provide effective medication therapy management

• Role 3: Maintain and improve professional performance

• Role 4: Contribute to improve effectiveness of the health-care system and public health

NEW SKILLS REQUIRED BY THE PHARMACIST

• communicators,• problem-solvers, • reflexive thinkers, • educators and• advisers

NEED OF SOCIAL SCIENCES IN PHARMACY PRACTICE

• ‘Social and behavioural science’ has been identified as having a significant contribution to make in the training of pharmacists and to develop these “New Skills”.

• So, “behavioural science” should be incorporated into the pharmacy undergraduate curriculum.

• The term ‘behavioural science’ denotes the scientific study of human behaviour and although it is most frequently associated with the discipline of psychology it implicitly includes other disciplines which study people and society, such as sociology and anthropology.

SOCIOLOGY & MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY

• Sociology explains an “individual’s actions as a social phenomenon”

• Medical Sociology demystifies the nature of health and illness, highlights the social causes of disease and death, exposes power-factors and ethical dilemmas in the production of health care, and either directly or indirectly helps to create a discerning practitioner who then becomes capable of more focussed and competent decision making’

Medical sociology Pharmacy practice

SOCIAL PHARMACY

EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL PHARMACY

• Practising pharmacy, is carried out among human beings, the persons referred to as customers or patients or users. They, in turn, are connected with one another in families, organizations and health systems in countries and cultures around the world. Thus, when trying to explain, understand or change pharmacy practice, the natural sciences simply do not provide adequate tools or perspectives. They need to be supplemented with knowledge from the disciplines that deal with people and systems, i.e., the humanistic and social sciences.

• And this is where Social Pharmacy comes into the picture.

SOCIAL PHARMACY

• “Social Pharmacy is the interdisciplinary discipline that enables the pharmacy profession to act, take part and take responsibility in drug matters at a societal level”

QUESTIONS WITHIN UNDER THE AREA OF “SOCIAL PHARMACY”

•How do laws influence development and approval of new drug products?• What is the influence of a newly developed product on health and health economics? • How is drug distribution carried out in countries that have different education and

availability of pharmacists? • How do pharmacists perceive and act upon their expanded roles in health care delivery?• Why is the patient taking (or not taking) a medicine as it was prescribed? • What kind(s) of drug information has the best effect on patient understanding and when

should it be provided?• How can a pharmacist most effectively identify a patient’s drug-related problems/side

effects?• How can new pharmaceutical services for the patient/customer be implemented in health

care?

•“The primary pursuit of Social Pharmacy research is to

investigate questions and themes concerning pharmacy practice and

medicine use.”

• Social Pharmacy leans more heavily on psychology, social psychology, sociology, political science, and economics, especially as these relate to issues in public health and social politics.

• Clinical Pharmacy serves as a bridge that overlaps with and connects the natural sciences and Social Pharmacy. •Social Pharmacy has strong connections to

Pharmacy Practice

PHARMACY PRACTICE RESEARCH & SOCIAL PHARMACY

• Social Pharmacy/Pharmacy Practice Research is linked to the broad field known as health services research. This linkage emphasises that this is an applied field of research, concerned with both understanding and improving pharmacy practice and medication use.

WHY IS RESEARCH OF THIS TYPE SO IMPORTANT?

• Increasingly, we recognise that pharmacy practice must be evidence-based and must make use of best practices. • Thus, it is important that pharmacy practices

be evaluated and that findings of such research be implemented. • It is important that pharmacist practitioners

participate in collaborative Social Pharmacy research or undertake their own research and professional audits.

WHAT TOPICS REQUIRE INVESTIGATION?

1. Supply, distribution and availability of services2. Demand of services 3. Organisation and process of service delivery4. Effectiveness and outcomes of services5. Improving quality of services and quality assurance 6. Evaluations of policy and practise experiments and innovations 7. Interface between pharmaceutical and other health services 8. Payment and remuneration for services and pharmaceutical

CONCLUSION• The practice of pharmacy and, consequently, pharmacy curricula

have undergone significant changes over the past years in response to a rapidly changing economic, political, and social environment. Within this context, the pharmacist's role had expanded to include more direct interaction with the public in terms of the provision of health information and advice on the safe and rational use of medications. To carry out these roles effectively, pharmacists need to be well prepared on how to deal with patients' behavior and psychology. The understanding of patient sociobehavioral aspects in the medication use process is paramount to achieving optimal clinical and humanistic outcomes from therapy. The concept of behavioral sciences and health psychology are embedded as the fundamental concepts in the field of social pharmacy, and thus it is imperative that this should be taught and nurtured to future pharmacy practitioners.

REFERENCES

1. www.fip.org/good_pharmacy_practice.2. www.who.int/mediacentre/news/new/2006/nw05/en/.3. Social pharmacy as a field of study: the needs and challenges in global pharmacy education,Hassali MA1, Shafie AA, Al-Haddad MS, Abduelkarem AR, Ibrahim MI, Palaian S, Abrika OS,  2011 Dec;7(4):415-20.4. The Concept of Social Pharmacy by Sørensen EW, Mount JK, Christensen ST.5. Sociology for Pharmacists An Introduction, By Kevin Taylor, Sarah Nettleton andGeoffrey Harding.