A 3-year retrospective review of hospital admissions involving opioid toxicity in South Australia.

Introduction: This article aims to characterise hospital admissions involving opioid toxicity across South Australia to guide future implementation and evaluation of risk mitigation strategies.

Methods: International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition codes (T40.0-T40.

Evaluating a medication history-taking entrustable professional activity and its assessment tool - Survey of a statewide public hospital pharmacy service.

Introduction: Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are tasks that professionals within a field perform autonomously. EPAs are incorporated in workplace-based assessment tools to assist training and professional development. Few studies have evaluated medication history-taking EPAs use in pharmacy practice and none have sought stakeholder feedback on their use.

Utilising a 'Community of Practice' to support pharmacists to work in residential aged care: protocol for a longitudinal evaluation.

Introduction: A Community of Practice is briefly defined as a group of people with a shared interest in a given area of practice who work collaboratively to grow collective knowledge. Communities of Practice have been used to facilitate knowledge exchange and improve evidence-based practice. Knowledge translation within the residential aged care sector is lacking, with barriers such as inadequate staffing and knowledge gaps commonly cited.

Multidisciplinary perspectives on roles of hospital pharmacists in tertiary settings: a qualitative study.

In today's complex healthcare landscape, exacerbated by resource constraints at various levels, optimization of health professionals' roles is becoming increasingly paramount. Interprofessional collaboration, underpinned by role recognition and teamwork, leads to improved patient and organizational outcomes. Hospital pharmacists play a pivotal role in multidisciplinary teams, and it is imperative to understand multidisciplinary viewpoints on hospital pharmacists' roles to guide role prioritization and organizational efficiency.

Application of the COM-B model to explore barriers and facilitators to participation in research by hospital pharmacists and pharmacy technicians: A cross-sectional mixed-methods survey.

Background: Combining research and clinical practice is crucial for advancing evidence-based healthcare and improving pharmacy service delivery. While hospital pharmacists report significant interest in research, this does not translate to high levels of research engagement. Furthermore, little is known regarding barriers and motivators for pharmacy technician involvement in research.

Continuing professional development opportunities for Australian endorsed for scheduled medicines podiatrists-What's out there and is it accessible, relevant, and meaningful? A cross-sectional survey.

Background: Non-medical prescribing is a valuable strategy to enable equitable access to medications in the context of the increasing demands on health services globally. Australian podiatrists have been able to seek endorsement for scheduled medicines (ESM) for over a decade. This project investigates the perceptions and habits of ESM podiatrists in meeting the extra continuing professional development (CPD) requirements associated with their ESM status.

Use of a reference text by pharmacists, intern pharmacists and pharmacy students: a national cross-sectional survey.

Background: Reference texts assist pharmacists by addressing knowledge gaps and enabling evidence-based decisions when providing patient care. It is unknown whether reference text utilisation patterns differ between pharmacists, intern pharmacists and pharmacy students. To describe and compare the self-reported use and perceptions of a reference text, namely the national formulary, by pharmacists, intern pharmacists and pharmacy students.

Pharmacists' use of guidelines for the supply of non-prescription medicines: a cross-sectional survey.

Objectives: Guidelines support best practice for healthcare practice. In Australia, some non-prescription medicines are only accessible after consultation with a pharmacist and are known as Pharmacist Only medicines. Guidelines for providing some Pharmacist Only medicines are available, however, it is currently unknown if and how these guidelines are used in practice.

Behaviours that contribute to pharmacist professionalism: a scoping review.

Objectives: Clearly understanding and describing professional behaviours of pharmacists allows the profession, researchers and policy-makers to observe and monitor the professionalism of pharmacists, and design interventions to improve it where needed. The primary objective of this review was to identify which behaviours are discussed to contribute to professionalism in registered pharmacists in peer-reviewed literature. The secondary objective was to review the identified behaviours using a behavioural specification framework to understand how they are expressed.

Perceptions and expectations of health professionals regarding hospital pharmacy services and the roles of hospital pharmacists: A qualitative systematic review and meta-synthesis.

Background: Pharmacists have become increasingly integrated within the interprofessional hospital team as their scope of practice expanded in recent decades. However, limited research has explored how the roles of hospital pharmacists are perceived by other health professionals.

Aim/objectives: To identify what is known about the perceptions of hospital pharmacists' roles and hospital pharmacy services held by non-pharmacist health professionals.

Who would be a pharmacist? A national representative cross-sectional survey of pharmacists and students to explore personality traits and associations with job satisfaction and career outlook.

Objectives: Pharmacists' response to practice change tends to range from apprehension to excitement. It is unknown if these varying responses are related to differing personality traits. This study aimed to describe the personality traits of Australian pharmacists, pharmacist interns and pharmacy students and any potential associations with their career satisfaction and/or outlook.

Design and implementation of a program wide pharmaceutical compounding curriculum using the scaffold learning approach.

Background And Purpose: We evaluated the design and implementation of a program wide pharmaceutical compounding curriculum covering five modules over four years using the scaffold learning approach in a pharmacy degree program.

Educational Activity And Setting: A programmatic approach was taken in the development of compounding expertise, which required moving away from a compartmentalized course design to a multi-course approach spanning all four years of the pharmacy program.

Findings: Since the intervention began in 2014, course failure rates, which were around 34% (2012-2014), have significantly decreased to 1.

Exploring patient experience and satisfaction with depot buprenorphine formulations: A mixed-methods study.

Introduction: The introduction of depot buprenorphine for the treatment of opioid dependence allows for reduced dosing frequency compared with conventional treatments, such as oral methadone and sublingual buprenorphine-naloxone. Reduced dosing frequency is perceived to reduce issues such as high out-of-pocket costs, frequent attendance to pharmacies, stigmatisation and the risk of diversion for unsanctioned opioid use. This study aims to explore the experiences of patients receiving depot buprenorphine from an Australian publicly operated drug and alcohol service.

Evaluation of research capacity and culture of hospital pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in a state-wide Australian public health service: A cross-sectional survey.

Background: Integrating research with clinical practice is essential for evidence-based practice and continuous improvement in health care. Little is known about the research capacity and culture of the Australian hospital pharmacy workforce, particularly in rural areas and for pharmacy assistants/technicians.

Objective: This paper aims to characterise the research capacity and culture of a state-wide public-hospital pharmacy service at organisation, team and individual levels, and to explore variables which influence research confidence and success.

Identifying rates and risk factors for medication errors during hospitalization in the Australian Parkinson's disease population: A 3-year, multi-center study.

Background: Admission to hospital introduces risks for people with Parkinson's disease in maintaining continuity of their highly individualized medication regimens, which increases their risk of medication errors. This is of particular concern as omitted medications and irregular dosing can cause an immediate increase in an individual's symptoms as well as other adverse outcomes such as swallowing difficulties, aspiration pneumonia, frozen gait and even potentially fatal neuroleptic malignant type syndrome.

Objective: To determine the occurrence and identify factors that contribute to Parkinson's medication errors in Australian hospitals.

Do pharmacy practice standards effectively describe behaviour? Reviewing practice standards using a behavioural specificity framework.

Background: Guidelines and practice standards exist to communicate the conduct and behaviour expected of health care professionals and ensure consistent quality practice. It is important that they describe behaviours explicitly so they can be interpreted, enacted and measured with ease. The AACTT framework specifies behaviour in terms of the: Action to be performed, Actor who performs the action, Context where the action occurs, Target who the action is performed with/for and Time when the action is performed (AACTT).

Use of professional practice guidance resources in pharmacy: a cross-sectional nationwide survey of pharmacists, intern pharmacists, and pharmacy students.

Background: Variations in practice are commonplace in healthcare where health professionals, such as pharmacists act as autonomous practitioners. This is evident in simulated patient studies, where pharmacists practice does not meet widely accepted standards for medicines supply or treatment of an ailment. To promote best pharmacy practice a myriad of guidance resources including practice guidelines, codes and standards are produced by professional organisations.

Opioid-Induced In-Hospital Deaths: A 10-Year Review of Australian Coroners' Cases Exploring Similarities and Lessons Learnt.

Although opioids are the cornerstone of moderate-to-severe acute pain management they are appropriately recognised as high-risk medicines. Patient and health service delivery factors can contribute to an increased risk of death associated with excessive sedation and respiratory impairment. Despite increasing awareness of opioid-induced ventilation impairment (OIVI), no reliable method consistently identifies individual characteristics and factors that increase mortality risk due to respiratory depression events.

The Role of the Pharmacist in Optimizing Cancer Immunotherapy: A Retrospective Study of Nivolumab Adverse Events.

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are an emerging treatment in cancer therapy for prolonging life, minimizing symptoms, and selectively targeting cancer. Program death 1 (PD-1) inhibitors, such as nivolumab, fall within this class, enabling the patient's immune system to detect and destroy cancer. The introduction of ICIs is changing cancer therapy, with new drugs and new toxicities-an evolving area encountered by pharmacists.

Let's talk virtual! Online focus group facilitation for the modern researcher.

Background: Focus group discussions typically involve face-to-face facilitation. There is growing interest in utilising digital technologies to facilitate aspects of focus group research. To date, no study in the pharmacy profession has comprehensively described and evaluated a fully virtual process to focus group research, from recruitment to reimbursement.

Stakeholders' Perceptions of Factors Influencing the Use of Take-Home-Naloxone.

Background And Aims: Opioid associated death and overdose is a growing burden in societies all over the world. In recent years, legislative changes have increased access to naloxone in the take-home setting for use by patients with a substance use disorder and bystanders, to prevent opioid overdose deaths. However, few studies have explored the factors influencing the uptake by its multiple stakeholders.

A comparison between Parkinson's medication errors identified through retrospective case note review versus via an incident reporting system during hospital admission.

Objective: To compare the frequency and type of inpatient Parkinson's medication errors reported through an incident report system versus those identified through retrospective case note review in a tertiary teaching hospital.

Methods: A search of inpatient medication-related incident reports identified those pertaining to Parkinson's medication. A discharge diagnoses search identified admissions for patients with Parkinson's disease over the same time period.

Exploring Australian pharmacists' perceptions and attitudes toward codeine up-scheduling from over-the-counter to prescription only.

Objective: Explore the perceptions, attitudes and experiences of pharmacists relating to the up-scheduling of low dose codeine containing analgesics and the impact on pharmacy practice.

Methods: A mixed design method was used consisting of an anonymous online questionnaire survey to quantitatively capture broad pre-scheduling change perceptions paired with a series of in-depth post-scheduling semi-structured interviews to provide a qualitative picture of the impact of codeine up-scheduling on pharmacy practice in Australia.

Results: A total of 191 pharmacists completed the quantitative survey and 10 participated in the in-depth interview.