International journal of clinical pharmacy
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The aim of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire for assessing HIV-infected patients' satisfaction with pharmaceutical care received in Nigerian HIV clinics. ⋯ The questionnaire developed is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing patient satisfaction with pharmaceutical care in HIV clinics in Nigeria. Further research is needed to expand the instruments' robustness.
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Data concerning the extent of off-label prescriptions for adult neurological patients are limited, and the method of assessing supporting evidence in previous studies has some limitations. ⋯ The improved method provided a supplementary way to study off-label uses. Off-label prescriptions for adult neurological patients mainly concerned unapproved indications, nervous system agents and cerebrovascular diseases, and many of them had inferior level of evidence.
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There is a need to expand clinical pharmacy services to cover the ambulatory pediatric cancer patients. There is a paucity of published literature describing pharmacy services in this setting. ⋯ Developing pediatric hematology-oncology clinical pharmacy services to cover the outpatient setting is essential to ensure continuity of care and to optimize therapeutics.
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With increasing deregulation of prescription-only medicines and drive for self-care, pharmacists have greater scope to manage more conditions. This brings added responsibility to be competent healthcare professionals who deliver high quality evidence-based patient care. ⋯ Safety was the primary concern when making decisions about over-the counter medicines. Pharmacists lacked knowledge of evidence-based practice and considered medicines which lacked evidence of effectiveness to have an important role in self-care. These factors present barriers to the widespread implementation of evidence-based practice.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Impact of pharmaceutical care on health outcomes in patients with COPD.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) treatment goals are often not achieved despite the availability of many effective treatments. Furthermore, clinical pharmacist interventions to improve clinical and humanistic outcomes in COPD patients have not yet been explored and few randomized controlled trials have been reported to evaluate the impact of pharmaceutical care on health outcomes in patients with COPD. ⋯ The enhanced patient outcomes as a result of the pharmaceutical care programme in the present study demonstrate the value of an enhanced clinical pharmacy service in achieving the desired health outcomes for patients with COPD.