Comparative Evaluation of Pharmacy Students' Knowledge and Skills in Maternal and Child Health: Traditional versus Integrated Curriculum.

Reducing maternal and child mortality is a health priority in South Africa. Therefore, health professional education should produce graduates that can meet these needs. This study compared the maternal and child health (MCH) knowledge and skills of cohorts of final-year students exposed to a traditional (in 2017 and 2018) and integrated (2019) curriculum using a 34-item questionnaire.

Development and Implementation of an Integrated Framework for Undergraduate Pharmacy Training in Maternal and Child Health at a South African University.

The South African Pharmacy Council (SAPC) regulates undergraduate pharmacy education and pharmacy practice. The SAPC Good Pharmacy Practice manual describes the role of pharmacists in maternal and child health (MCH) in line with the recommendation of international health regulatory bodies. However, baseline study findings in 2017 supported literature from around the world that indicated a need for curriculum review and integration to address the knowledge and skills gap in pharmacists' MCH training.

The effectiveness of using text and pictograms on oral rehydration, dry-mixture sachet labels.

Background: Medication labels are often the only information available to patients after obtaining medication from a healthcare practitioner. Pictograms are graphic symbols that have shown to increase understanding of medicine use instructions.

Aim: To compare the accuracy of the interpretation of medicine use instructions from two different oral rehydration (OR) dry-mixture sachet labels - the control 'routine textonly' label and an experimental label with 'text-and-pictograms'.

Access to chronic medicines: patients' preferences for a last kilometre medicine delivery service in Cape Town, South Africa.

Background: Chronic patients are required to access their chronic medicines on a regular basis, often only to refill their repeat prescriptions. Adherence to chronic medicines is challenging and has stimulated health care providers to devise differentiated service delivery models of care to decentralise chronic medicine distribution to decrease the frequency of medicine collection at health care facilities. One such option includes a last kilometre medicine delivery service.

Evaluating pharmacy students' knowledge and skills in reproductive, maternal, new-born and child health care at a South African university.

Background: Maternal and child mortality is a global concern and one of South Africa's quadruple burdens of disease. As easily accessible frontline healthcare workers, pharmacists play an important role in the continuum of maternal and child health (MCH) care according to recommendations by international health regulatory bodies. Pharmacy schools are obliged to train pharmacy students to meet the priority health needs of the population so that graduates are 'fit for purpose'.

Continuous Professional Development for Public Sector Pharmacists in South Africa: A Case Study of Mapping Competencies in a Pharmacists' Preceptor Programme.

Lifelong learning among healthcare practitioners is crucial to keep abreast of advances in therapeutic and service delivery approaches. In South Africa, continuous professional development (CPD) was mandated (2019) for re-registration of pharmacists to illustrate their learning according to the South African Pharmacy Council's (SAPC) competency standards. This paper uses a preceptor programme linked to the University of the Western Cape School of Pharmacy's service learning programme to map the competencies employed by pharmacist preceptors in primary care public healthcare facilities in Cape Town in an attempt to encourage completion of their annual CPDs and strengthening the academic-service partnership.

Describing medicine therapy management of type 2 diabetes mellitus at primary health care facilities in Cape Town.

Background: Rational medicine use aims to optimise chronic disease management and prevent episodes of hospitalisation that economically burden the health care system. Diabetes mellitus is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases globally, yet more than 60% of patients with diabetes are not optimally managed according to their therapeutic glycaemic targets.

Aim: To describe the use of glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) and fasting plasma glucose results in guiding treatment changes in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Exploring the Implications of a Needs-Based Pharmacy Education Framework Modelled on Population Health: Perspective from a Developing Country.

Globally, health education reform is directing efforts to strengthen the health system through collaboration between health education and health services. However, collaborative efforts vary between developed and developing countries as the health needs, economic constraints, and resource availability differs. In developing countries, resource allocation is weighed in favor of interventions that will benefit the majority of the population.

Understanding health worker data use in a South African antiretroviral therapy register.

Objective: To evaluate how electronic data management systems affect data use practices in antiretroviral therapy (ART) programs within local health districts, and individual health facilities.

Methods: We used a data quality audit to establish a baseline of the quality of data in the electronic register alongside in-depth interviews with health workers and managers, to understand perceptions of data quality, data use by facility staff and challenges affecting data use.

Results: The findings provide a four-level continuum of data use that can be applied to other settings and recommendations for optimising facility-level data use.

Implementation of an electronic monitoring and evaluation system for the antiretroviral treatment programme in the Cape Winelands district, South Africa: a qualitative evaluation.

Background: A pragmatic three-tiered approach to monitor the world's largest antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme was adopted by the South African National Department of Health in 2010. With the rapid expansion of the programme, the limitations of the paper-based register (tier 1) were the catalyst for implementation of the stand-alone electronic register (tier 2), which offers simple digitisation of the paper-based register. This article engages with theory on implementation to identify and contextualise enabling and constraining factors for implementation of the electronic register, to describe experiences and use of the register, and to make recommendations for implementation in similar settings where standardisation of ART monitoring and evaluation has not been achieved.

Antidiabetic and cytotoxicity screening of five medicinal plants used by traditional African health practitioners in the Nelson Mandela Metropole, South Africa.

Diabetes mellitus is a growing problem in South Africa and of concern to traditional African health practitioners in the Nelson Mandela Metropole, because they experience a high incidence of diabetic cases in their practices. A collaborative research project with these practitioners focused on the screening of Bulbine frutescens, Ornithogalum longibracteatum, Ruta graveolens, Tarchonanthus camphoratus and Tulbaghia violacea for antidiabetic and cytotoxic potential. In vitro glucose utilisation assays with Chang liver cells and C2C12 muscle cells, and growth inhibition assays with Chang liver cells were conducted.