Advanced pharmaceutical services in community pharmacies

ABSTRACT

Background: A community pharmacist represents the most accessible healthcare provider in many countries, and community pharmacies are suitable places for patient counselling, addressing simple health issues, managing chronic diseases, offering support for non-pharmaceutical treatment, making recommendations for safe medication use, and preventing further drug-related problems. Objective: This review aims to summarise the types of advanced care interventions pharmacists make in community pharmacies, explore their feasibility and benefits for patients and public health, and assess the impact of these interventions on the continued development of pharmaceutical practice in community pharmacies. Methods: The search for relevant studies was conducted on PubMed using keywords related to pharmaceutical services in community pharmacies and excluding studies in hospital pharmacies and clinical pharmacy interventions. Results: This review encompasses a variety of pharmaceutical services tailored to patients/clients with diverse types of diseases. Historically, first data about advanced pharmaceutical services in community pharmacies were related to interventions for patients with cardiovascular (CV) diseases and asthma. They remained the most prevalent, and their clear positive benefits were well-documented. Scientifical investigations of other advanced services were less extensive with tangible advantages but mainly depended on the intervention duration and physician-pharmacist cooperation. Conclusions: Advances in pharmaceutical services and their outcomes documented in scientific literature represent a shift towards addressing individual patient needs alongside the traditional roles of pharmacists. However, the field's vastness and less consistent research hinder the formulation of universally applicable recommendations or guidelines. Particularly, interventions focused on CV diseases are strong candidates for internationally valid recommendations in community pharmacies.

KEYWORDS

• pharmaceutical service
• pharmacist intervention
• community pharmacy
• review
• advanced services

Showing references and in-text citations exactly as published.

• DOI10.18549/PharmPract.2025.1.3073Copy

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