Pharmaceutical care services provided by pharmacists during COVID-19 pandemic: perspectives from around the World

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Objectives

Pharmacists have proven to be an indispensable member of the frontline healthcare team during this COVID-19 pandemic and have performed key roles and responsibilities to mitigate its adverse impact. They are facing several unusual challenges in these changing and evolving circumstances and are adopting novel strategies to overcome them. This review aims to identify and describe the different pharmaceutical care services delivered by pharmacists during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

A review of different studies was conducted to appraise the existing literature regarding various pharmaceutical care services carried out by the pharmacist during the COVID-19 pandemic. The review was done using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA). A comprehensive literature search was done using different databases such as MEDLINE, PubMed, Embase and ProQuest to identify the relevant studies.

Key findings

The review highlights the various pharmaceutical care services provided and implemented by pharmacists during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pharmaceutical care services like patient education and counselling, providing information, addressing medication shortages, teleconsultation, medication review, optimizing medication regimen, adverse drug reaction monitoring and addressing the medication-related problems are being delivered by the pharmacists in this ongoing pandemic.

Conclusions

All the studies described the roles and responsibilities of the pharmacists during COVID-19. This pandemic adversity has opened up new avenues for the pharmacists which have broadened their scope as the member of multidisciplinary healthcare team. Pharmacists have to overcome the unforeseen barriers and challenges and continue providing need-based pharmaceutical care services.

Related collections

Most cited references 23

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Community pharmacist in public health emergencies: Quick to action against the coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak

Carolina Oi Lam Ung (2020)

The 2019-nCoV infection that is caused by a novel strain of coronavirus was first detected in China in the end of December 2019 and declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization on January 30, 2020. Community pharmacists in one of the first areas that had confirmed cases of the viral infection, Macau, joined the collaborative force in supporting the local health emergency preparedness and response arrangements. This paper aimed to improve the understanding of community pharmacists’ role in case of 2019-CoV outbreak based on the practical experiences in consultation with the recommendations made by the International Pharmaceutical Federation on the Coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak.

0 comments Cited 89 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Role of pharmacist during the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review

Marília Visacri, Isabel Figueiredo, Tácio Mendonça de Lima (2020)

Background Since the start of the new Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in December 2019, pharmacists worldwide are playing a key role adopting innovative strategies to minimize the adverse impact of the pandemic. Objectives To identify and describe core services provided by the pharmacist during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods A literature search was performed in MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, and LILACS for studies published between December 1st, 2019 and May 20th, 2020 without language restriction. Studies that reported services provided by pharmacists during the COVID-19 pandemic were included. Two independent authors performed study selection and data extraction with a consensus process. The pharmacist's intervention identified in the included studies were described based on key domains in the DEPICT v.2. Results A total of 1189 records were identified, of which 11 studies fully met the eligibility criteria. Most of them were conducted in the United States of America (n = 4) and China (n = 4). The most common type of publication were letters (n = 4) describing the workplace of the pharmacist in hospitals (n = 8). These findings showed the different roles of pharmacists during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as disease prevention and infection control, adequate storage and drug supply, patient care and support for healthcare professionals. Pharmacists' interventions were mostly conducted for healthcare professionals and patients (n = 7), through one-to-one contact (n = 11), telephone (n = 6) or video conference (n = 5). The pharmacists' main responsibility was to provide drug information for healthcare professionals (n = 7) as well as patient counseling (n = 8). Conclusions A reasonable number of studies that described the role of the pharmacists during the COVID-19 pandemic were found. All studies reported actions taken by pharmacists, although without providing a satisfactory description. Thus, future research with more detailed description as well as an evaluation of the impact of pharmacist intervention is needed in order to guide future actions in this and/or other pandemic.

0 comments Cited 68 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

The Role of Hospital and Community Pharmacists in the Management of COVID-19: Towards an Expanded Definition of the Roles, Responsibilities, and Duties of the Pharmacist

Nicola Luigi Bragazzi, Muhammad S. Mansour, Alessandro Bonsignore … (2020)

Since late December 2019, a novel, emerging coronavirus was identified as the infectious agent responsible for a generally mild but sometimes severe and even life-threatening disease, termed as “coronavirus disease 2019” (COVID-19). The pathogen was initially named as “2019 novel coronavirus” (2019-nCoV) and later renamed as “Severe Acute Respiratory Coronavirus type 2” (SARS-CoV-2). COVID-19 quickly spread from the first epicenter, the city of Wuhan, province of Hubei, mainland China, into neighboring countries, and became a global pandemic. As of July 15th 2020, the outbreak is still ongoing, with SARS-CoV-2 affecting 213 countries and territories. The coronavirus has caused a dramatic toll of deaths and imposed a severe burden, both from a societal and economic point of view. COVID-19 has challenged health systems, straining and overwhelming healthcare facilities and settings, including hospital and community pharmacies. On the other hand, COVID-19 has propelled several changes. During the last decades, pharmacy has shifted from being products-based and patient-facing to being services-based and patient-centered. Pharmacies have transitioned from being compounding centers devoted to the manipulation of materia medica to pharmaceutical centers, clinical pharmacies and fully integrated “medical-pharmaceutical networks”, providing a significant range of non-prescribing services. Moreover, roles, duties and responsibilities of pharmacists have paralleled such historical changes and have known a gradual expansion, incorporating new skills and reflecting new societal demands and challenges. The COVID-19 outbreak has unearthed new opportunities for pharmacists: community and hospital pharmacists have, indeed, played a key role during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that a fully integrated, inter-sectoral and inter-professional collaboration is necessary to face crises and public health emergencies. Preliminary, emerging evidence seems to suggest that, probably, a new era in the history of pharmacies (“the post-COVID-19 post-pharmaceutical care era”) has begun, with community pharmacists acquiring more professional standing, being authentic heroes and frontline health workers.

0 comments Cited 51 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Syed Arman Rabbani:

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8454-8158

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Pharm Health Serv Res

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J Pharm Health Serv Res

Journal ID (publisher-id): jphsr

Title: Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research

Publisher: Oxford University Press (UK )

ISSN (Print): 1759-8885

ISSN (Electronic): 1759-8893

Publication date (Electronic): 20 April 2021

Electronic Location Identifier: rmab017

Affiliations

Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology, RAK College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, RAK Medical and Health Sciences University , Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates

Author notes

Correspondence: Syed Arman Rabbani, Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology, RAK College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, RAK Medical and Health Sciences University. Email: arman@ 123456rakmhsu.ac.ae

Author information

Sathvik B Sridhar https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9100-2508

Syed Arman Rabbani https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8454-8158

Article

Publisher ID: rmab017

DOI: 10.1093/jphsr/rmab017

PMC ID: 8083237

SO-VID: d677dc8a-8169-4440-a8b5-13191cc9586c

License:

This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic or until permissions are revoked in writing. Upon expiration of these permissions, PMC is granted a perpetual license to make this article available via PMC and Europe PMC, consistent with existing copyright protections.

This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model ( https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)

History

Date received : 11 March 2021

Date accepted : 20 March 2021

Page count

Pages: 6

Custom metadata

article-lifecycle PAP

Keywords: pharmaceutical care services,pharmacists,covid-19 pandemic,roles,responsibilities

Data availability:

Keywords: pharmaceutical care services, pharmacists, covid-19 pandemic, roles, responsibilities

Pharmaceutical care services provided by pharmacists during COVID-19 pandemic: perspectives from around the World

Read this article at

Abstract

Objectives

Methods

Key findings

Conclusions

Related collections

Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19

Most cited references 23

Community pharmacist in public health emergencies: Quick to action against the coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak

Role of pharmacist during the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review

The Role of Hospital and Community Pharmacists in the Management of COVID-19: Towards an Expanded Definition of the Roles, Responsibilities, and Duties of the Pharmacist

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Author information

Article

History

Page count

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 464

Cited by 3

Most referenced authors 193