BACKGROUND While spontaneous reporting (SR) is one of the important public health activities for community pharmacists to guard patients' safety, very few studies examined educational activities and its effects on knowledge about the SR system in Korea. This study described the association between knowledge of SR and educational activities targeting community pharmacists in Korea. METHODS Sel...

INTRODUCTION Retail drug sellers are a major source of health care and medicines in many countries. In Tanzania, drug shops are widely used, particularly in rural and underserved areas. Previously, the shops were allowed to sell only over-the-counter medicines, but sellers who were untrained and unqualified often illegally sold prescription drugs of questionable quality. CASE DESCRIPTION In 2...

BACKGROUND Obtaining an accurate and complete medication list (i.e., the best possible medication history [BPMH]) is the first step in completing medication reconciliation. The ability of pharmacy technicians to obtain medication histories, relative to that of pharmacists, has not been formally assessed. OBJECTIVES To determine whether pharmacy technicians at the authors' institution could ob...

INTRODUCTION The use of over-the-counter, prescription, and illicit drugs to increase attention, concentration, or memory-often called (pharmacological) neuroenhancement-shows a broad range of prevalence rates among students. However, very little data is available on neuroenhancement among employed persons. The aim of this study was to provide first data on substance use for neuroenhancement am...

Executive summary / 1 Introduction / 7 The particular impact of new or " patented " drugs on government health care costs / 8 The impact of all types of drugs on government health care costs / 18 The real cause of unsustainable growth in government health spending / 25 Research suggests that government health spending in Canada is growing at an unsus-tainable pace [Skinner and Rovere, 2006; 200...

CONTEXT Recent public outcry has highlighted the rising cost of prescription drugs worldwide, which in several disease areas outpaces other health care expenditures and results in a suboptimal global availability of essential medicines. METHOD A systematic review of Pubmed, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Guardian was performed to identify articles rel...

BACKGROUND There is currently many over the counter products on the market that exert nutritional or physiological effects on the human body. The differences between dietary supplements and non-prescription drugs are however poorly understood by the average consumer and may thus affect their expectations as to the desired effect produced on the body. OBJECTIVES To evaluate patients' knowledge...

BACKGROUND The transition of prescription drugs (Rx) to over-the-counter (OTC) status is a very complex and multifaceted process involving many parties and many issues. This article examines the regulatory history and process and presents a review of the issues involved, using recent Rx-to-OTC conversions as examples. FINDINGS Data are presented on the growth of the OTC market and the impact ...

BACKGROUND Despite the impact of medication literacy (ML) on patients' safe use of medications, existing instruments are mostly for general health literacy measurement or designed for specific disease populations, with few specifically designed for ML. OBJECTIVE To develop and validate the first Chinese medication literacy measure (ChMLM). METHODS The ChMLM was developed by a multidisciplin...

CONTEXT To both ensure athletes' safety and avoid legal penalties, athletic trainers' (ATs') handling of medications in the athletic training room should conform with federal and state statutes. OBJECTIVE To revisit drug dispensation and administration in collegiate athletic training rooms 5 years after the initial study. DESIGN Survey study. SETTING College and university athletic traini...