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May 2025 DOI 10.14302/issn.2641-5526.jmid-25-5466
Information on adverse drug event (ADE) assessment and prevention within Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is difficult for clinicians to use and produces wide-ranging results. Challenges include inconsistent ADE and drug product definition and documentation, workflows, terminology standardization, interoperability, and clinical decision support (CDS) to inform clinical decision-making within EHRs. These factors contribute to care issues for clinicians, such as alert fatigue and provider burden for clinicians and medical errors, patient harm, and even death for patients. Clinicians play the primary role in documenting, reviewing, detecting, and preventing ADEs within EHRs. It is essential that clinicians, clinical informaticists, nursing informaticists, pharmacy informaticists, and the health informatics profession understand the current electronic ADE paradigm to advocate for improved detection and prevention of ADEs within EHRs.
Jul 2021 DOI 10.14302/issn.2641-4538.jphi-21-3881
Phenomenology is a ritual of Qualitative research methodology. Interviews in healthcare enables researchers to recognise and understand data from lived experiences of the participants by using Phenomenological approach. The purpose of this article is to review the various face to face in depth interviews conducted using Husserl’s descriptive, Heidegger’s interpretive phenomenology or Hermeneutic phenomenological approach in healthcare. The in-depth interview will help to understand the health issues and ethical issues faced by participants. Methodology Four articles were selected based on phenomenological approach. Article.1 was based on Hermeneutic Phenomenology approach. In this study thirteen women were taken as sample. Sampling was done by snowball method. The women were asked to share their rural maternity experience. Data was analyzed without any influence of the researcher. Article.2 was based on Transcendental phenomenology. There were 15 students from 4 different cultural background belonging to different health professional programmes like nursing, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and physical therapy. Triangulation methods were used and semi structured interviews were conducted, recorded and transcribed. Health professional students shared their lived experience with patients. Article.3 was based on a study conducted using both Transcendental phenomenology for patients interviews and Hermeneutic phenomenology for healthcare professionals’ interviews. The semi structured interview of patient was taken to understand and record their lived experience with the medication without any bias or interpretation and data received was bracketed. The healthcare professionals’ interviews were conducted on Hermeneutic strategy regarding the medications they prescribe for life threatening illnesses. Article 4 was based on Hermeneutic phenomenological approach. There were nine patients selected and in depth semi-structured interviews were conducted. The patients shared their experience of living with a life limiting illness.
Sep 2020 DOI 10.14302/issn.2328-0182.japst-20-3526
Background Self-medication (SM) can be defined as the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms, or the intermittent or continued use of a prescribed drug for chronic or recurrent disease or symptoms. A number of individuals in developing countries do not attend physicians for their illnesses; instead they commonly use self-medication. Self-medication could be using drugs existing in home like over the counter (OCT) drugs, traditional medicine, prescription only drug. Self-medication is not always bad, hence for the over the counter drugs it is beneficial. Inappropriate storage and use of medicines at home could have a direct influence on public health, the environment and the health-care services and it increases the risk of self-medication. Objective To assess the practice of self-medication and drug storage among South Sudanese community in Addis Ababa. Materials and Methods A cross sectional study design was conducted in Addis Ababa city from April 22 to April 26/2019. Data was collected by semi structure-questionnaire consisting questions on general demographic, socio-economic as well as on perceived illness/ symptoms in the past four weeks and actions taken for it. The data collected was screened before it is analyzed. Data analysis was done by using calculator. Results From the total 297 respondents 286 (96.2%) had reported self-medication in the last one month before the study period. The most common types of ailments for which the respondents reported to have practiced self-medication were cough, cold and sore throat 90(30.3%), followed by headache 66(22.2%), diarrhea 52(17.5%) ,abdominal pain 47(15.8%), fever 21(7.07%) and vomiting 10(3.3%). The reasons given for self-medication were; the illness was minor 226(76%) and previous experiences with similar ailments 31 (10.4%) were found to be the two major reasons given by the respondents for self-medication in this study. The majority of the respondents 242(81.4%) who practiced self-medication obtained information on self-medication from friends and 29(9.7%) obtained information from family members. The most frequently used group of drugs used for self-medication were analgesics/antipyretics 177(59.5%) and antimicrobial which account 75(25.2%) each followed by antihelmenthics 24(8.08%).The main source of drugs for SM was in pharmacy 220(74.07%) followed by leftover drugs 41(13.8%) while drug retail outlet, and neighbors and relatives were the suppliers to 12.13% respondents each. Conclusion and Recommendation A significant number of respondents (96.2%) use S/M from those perceived illness. Majority of the self-medicated individuals used due to minor illness. The most common category of drugs used was analgesics/antipyretics and antimicrobials. And the reason reported for using S/M was minor illness and previous experience with the illness. Most of respondents obtained drugs easily from pharmacy. So, pharmacies are the major sources of drugs used for S/M. The increased of drugs storage to treat similar illness/symptom and drugs left over from previous use contribute to the increase in the S/M practice. Common drugs store reported by respondents who store modern drugs were analgesic/antipyretic. Most of the respondents stored the drug in locked cabinets. A lot is need to be done in educating the public including the health care providers on the type of illnesses that can be self-diagnosed and self-treated, the type of drugs to be used for S/M, and the proper use of drugs. During dispensing of drugs emphasis should be given to all drug consumers and dispenser because of resistance and side effects of drug is the main challenging problem even in the world. Food, Medicines and Healthcare Administration and Control Authority (FMHACA) needs to effectively implement laws on drug handling and dispensing so as to take necessary measures on illegal providers of drugs.
Jul 2020 DOI 10.14302/issn.2641-5526.jmid-20-3493
Background Rational drug management has become an increasingly important topic in order to make optimal use of the drug budget to offer health services of the highest possible standard. It is important that continuous assessment for rational prescribing and use of drug have to be carried. Objective of this study was to gather data on existing drug prescription and dispensing practices and to evaluate the prescribing and dispensing indicators as described by the WHO. Method Observational, cross-sectional, prospective study was designed and conducted to evaluate the performance of hospital and community pharmacies in Khartoum state, related to rational drug use and prescribing and dispensing practices during the period from November 2018 to March 2019. 297 Hospital and community pharmacies from public and private sectors were contacted for carrying out this study survey and the collected data were analysed against WHO standards for core drug use indicators. Results The average number of drugs per encounter was 3.98 drugs. Hospital pharmacies had a higher (4.18±1.516) number of drugs prescribed than community pharmacies (3.87±1.331) with significance difference between mean of two types of pharmacies (P = 0.015). The percentage of antibiotic per prescription was (53.7%). Antibiotic prescribing was much higher (54.0%) in the hospital pharmacies compared to (48.6 %) in community pharmacies. The average percentage of injections per prescription at the facilities was found to be (57.6%). The percentage of prescription with written diagnosis was (26%.0) and the percentage of prescriptions with written dose was (78%.0). The average dispensing time was (1.75) minutes, The Percentage of drugs actually dispensed was (55.99%), the average adequacy of labelling of drugs was (30.4%). Overall prescribing and dispensing indicators were higher than WHO standard. Conclusion The degree of poly pharmacy was greater than of WHO criteria. The completeness and rationality of prescription was found suboptimal and components were missed.
May 2020 DOI 10.14302/issn.2692-1537.ijcv-20-3355
Telemedicine and telehealth technologies are especially effective during epidemic outbreaks, when health authorities recommend implementing social distance systems. Currently, coronavirus COVID-19 has affected 210 countries around the world, killed more than 200,000 and infected more than 3 million, according to worldometer, April 26, 2020. Home-care is especially important in these situations because hospitals are not seemingly safe during pandemic outbreaks. Also, the chance to get out of the home during the lockdown period is limited. Telephone-based measures improve efficiency by linking appropriate information and feedback. It can also help provide education at distance on various health issues and topics. In addition to increasing access to healthcare, telemedicine is a fruitful and proactive way to provide a variety of benefits to patients seeking healthcare; diagnose and monitor critical and chronic health conditions; improve healthcare quality and reduce costs. The article reveals scope of pharmacy professionals in telemedicine sector during epidemic outbreaks.
Nov 2019 DOI 10.14302/issn.2328-0182.japst-19-3066
Introduction Pharmacists and pharmaceutical care services are among the most important tools in providing health services to the society. Pharmacists as the key players in presenting health services, critically impact on the health of the society and if they suffer low job satisfaction, their dissatisfaction may relatively threaten health in the society. This study was conducted to determine Sudanese community pharmacists’ job satisfaction and additionally, some causes of dissatisfaction among community pharmacists and their impact on providing pharmaceutical care services have been evaluated. Method The questionnaire was designed after reviewing relevant Literature in addition, The Job Satisfaction survey was used to measure the level of community pharmacists’ satisfaction with their current jobs, and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) was used to evaluate emotional experience and awareness. Results and Discussion Generally low scores of job satisfaction were concluded among pharmacists while most of them were highly satisfied with being pharmacist. Conclusion Low levels of job satisfaction which were found among Sudanese community pharmacists could be considered as a deficiency of health system in Sudan. Fortunately, inherent interest in the pharmacy profession found among Sudanese pharmacists is an optimistic point at which policy-makers could develop their modifying policies. Health policy-makers must endeavor to take other steps to issue solutions for this current problem.
Mar 2019 DOI 10.14302/issn.2576-6694.jbbs-19-2684
Yeast as unicellular organism, has shown multiple application due to exhibition of noble ability in its cells. And engineered yeast has found more suitability in bioprocesses application as well as adverse conditions adaptation. Different types of yeast strains showed their best capability to adapt the salt and sugar rich environment with their optimal growth capability. These strains, used as suitable and novel cell factories for production of value added bio-products (via utilization of fermentation processes) and also for different types of bioprocesses. Application of yeast species in biotechnology field, enhanced in current periods, due to conversion of its wild to engineer strain, suitable for bioprocesses utilization and also for different types of biochemical synthesis. Different yeast species identified due to known their genetic, regulatory mechanism and also competitive metabolic pathways. In this regards, different type of engineering approaches (for genetic or pathways modification), applied to construct the optimal and suitable cell factories for different types of bioprocesses as utilized in different sectors (foods with mineral or protein rich, bread, brewing, cosmetics, chemical, agriculture, pharmacy and distillation industries) via improving the quality of bio-products. Further, in silico designed based metabolic engineering technique showed the improvement in performance of yeast strain. System and synthetic biology with engineering approaches applied to further improve the yeast mediated bioprocesses as well as biochemical products formation for industrial or biotechnological application. Some bio-products such as functional bio-molecule, different types of alcoholic biofuels, organic acids and enzymes etc are good examples of yeast mediated biochemicals products, utilized more frequently in our life. Author will focus recent research and development on bio-product formation or bioprocesses with their regulatory control mechanism in different yeast strains.
Jul 2017 DOI 10.14302/issn.3070-5835.jcpn-17-1562
Second-generation antipsychotics have relatively recently become available in long-acting intramuscular formulations (LAIs) and have been receiving a substantial amount of pharmaceutical industry promotion on the grounds that they improve treatment adherence in patients with psychotic illness. LAIs do have some drawbacks, however, which is the topic area covered by this review. A Global Scholar search of the nursing and medical literature reveals several factors that can negatively impinge on the clinical efficacy of LAIs: 1. The extent of training of injection personnel 2. The quality of surveillance of patient symptoms and side effects 3. The skilled use of the full range of injection techniques 4. The extent of drug accumulation over time 5. The potential loss of drug dose flexibility 6. The impact of exercise and temperature on drug distribution 7. The burden of the medication routine and the social burdens of LAIs 8. The safety of LAIs during pregnancy 9. The perceived coerciveness of LAIs 10. Issues of overdose and polypharmacy 11. Issues of cost 12. The important issue of responsibility for self-management of illness. Although the evidence is clinical and anecdotal, LAIs appear to work well for many patients, but their drawbacks are not negligible. Clinicians need to weigh individual risks and benefits when making treatment decisions.
May 2016 DOI 10.14302/issn.2574-450X.jom-16-1039
Over the last three decades, an epidemic of obesity has markedly affected patients suffering from mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. Antipsychotic medications used to treat schizophrenia are considered as major culprits. The aim of this review is to first consider risk factors, to then outline negative sequelae of obesity for this population, and finally to address timing and content of recommended clinical interventions. Medical databases were searched with the terms “”weight,” “obesity,” and “schizophrenia.” Selection of articles was guided by date of publication; recent papers are preferentially cited. The main findings were that, in addition to antipsychotic medications, socio-economics, lifestyle, immune factors, and circadian rhythms also contribute to obesity risk. A barrier to effective health promotion within psychiatry has been the concern that fears about gaining weight might stop individuals with schizophrenia from taking needed antipsychotic medication. Recommendations, therefore, are to keep the dose of antipsychotic medication as low as possible, avoid polypharmacy, encourage healthy eating and physical activity, address sleep problems and substance use, monitor weight, blood pressure, and metabolic parameters regularly, utilize motivational interviewing techniques and peer support, pay special attention to special needs such as those of women during pregnancy, and include bariatric surgery as a potential intervention. Conclusion: Besides careful attention to medication regimens, the literature supports the active encouragement and support of patient self-management strategies to both prevent and manage obesity in schizophrenia.
Jun 2014 DOI 10.14302/issn.2374-9431.jbd-13-330
Background: Health practitioners of different disciplines (physicians, paramedic personnel, pharmacists) should possess adequate ICT (Information and Communication Technology) skills and practical competence on these technologies. Pharmacy practice requires a relevant flow of information, collection and handling of which could be facilitated by ICT. The correct use of ICT requires a proper knowledge by professionals offering a public service. The purpose of this paper was to assess basic informatics background and computer uses in pharmacists practicing in Italy, with the aim to identify educational interventions for increasing their informatics abilities. Methods: A questionnaire was proposed to pharmacists working in Italian community pharmacies. The survey was articulated into 35 questions concerning computer basic knowledge, ICT facilities, computer skills, habits, and uses in pharmacy practice. Results: The questionnaire was completed by ~45% (No. 224) of responders, the 96.9% of which used computer. Only 7.8% of interviewed people employed e-mail to communicate with health authorities and less than 2% used it to be in contact with physicians or other health professionals. Less than 40% used ICT for training courses. The results revealed a relevant percentage (90.8%) of self-learners to computer use, while only 9.2% was trained by specific courses. Conclusion: Basic knowledge of community pharmacists on ICT technological infrastructure is quite low. Although pharmacists play an essential role in health services, they have apparently limited computer skills. This suggests the need of educational and training efforts for enlarging computer and ICT resources competent use in daily pharmacy practice.
Jun 2013 DOI 10.14302/issn.2324-7339.jcrhap-13-edt.1.2
This perspective reviews practical approaches to measuring ART adherence in resource‑limited settings. It weighs self‑report, pill counts, pharmacy refill data, and biologic measures, emphasizing feasibility, bias, and programmatic integration to support sustainable HIV care.