Monetary valuation of COVID-19 informal care: caregivers' willingness to pay and willingness to accept.

BACKGROUND: Informal care can reduce hospitalization frequency and time, elevate bed turnover, and increase the health systems' capacity. This type of care has shown meaningful value in managing many cases through the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study aimed to identify determinants of monetary valuation of informal care and the burden of this care on the COVID-19 patients' caregivers. METHODS: Through a cross-sectional phone survey from June to September 2021 in Sanandaj city, the west of Iran, COVID-19 patients and their caregivers (Each Group No. 425) were separately interviewed. A simple probabilistic sampling method was applied. Two questionnaires were developed and used after validation. Monetary valuation of informal caregivers was done using Willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA). Double hurdle regressions were used to determine related variables to WTP/WTA. R software was used for the data analysis. RESULTS: The total mean (Standard Deviation) of WTP and WTA were $12.02(28.73), $10.30(15.43) USD. Most respondents put a zero value on informal care by WTA (243(57.18%) and WTP [263 (61.88%)]. Caregivers' Employment, and being spouse/child of the care recipient increased the probability of reporting a positive value for WTP (p-value < 0.0001, p-value = 0.011 respectively) and WTA (p-value = 0.004, p-value < 0.0001 respectively). An increase in the number of caring days decreased the probability of reporting positive WTA (p-value = 0.001) and increased the mean of lnWTP (p-value = 0.044). Perceived difficulty in doing indoor activities and perceived difficulty in doing outdoor activities decreased lnWTA mean (p-value = 0.002) and lnWTP mean (p-value = 0.043) respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing caregivers' self-efficacy and facilitating their involvement in the caring process could be facilitated through flexible work status, educational programs, and interventions on decreasing their burnout.

Impact of Clinical Pharmacist-conducted Medication Reconciliation at Admission and Discharge on Medication Safety in Patients Hospitalized with Acute Decompensated Heart Failure.

BACKGROUND: Most studies have focused on the impact of medication reconciliation on one of the points of hospital admission or discharge. In this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of medication reconciliation at both admission and discharge on medication safety in patients hospitalized with acute decompensated heart failure. METHODS: This was a prospective, single-center, cohort study conducted in a tertiary care cardiovascular hospital from October 2022 to March 2023 on patients hospitalized with acute decompensated heart failure. Patients were considered eligible if they were taking at least five chronic medications prior to hospital admission. Medication reconciliation was carried out for the study patients by a clinical pharmacy team both at admission and discharge. Further, the study patients also received comprehensive discharge counseling as well as post-discharge follow-up and monitoring. RESULTS: Medication reconciliation was applied for 129 patients at admission and 118 of them at discharge. The mean time needed for medication reconciliation presses was 32 min per patient on admission and 22min per patient on discharge. Unintentional medication discrepancies were relatively common both at admission and discharge in the study participants, but compared to admission, discrepancies were less frequent at discharge (178 versus 72). Based on the consensus review, about 30% of identified errors detected at both admission and discharge were judged to have the potential to cause moderate to severe harm to the patient, and most of the clinical pharmacists' recommendations on unintended discrepancies were accepted by physicians and resulted in changes in medication orders (more than 80%). Further, the majority of the participants were 'very satisfied' or 'satisfied' with the clinical pharmacy services provided to them during hospitalization and after hospital discharge (89.90%). CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrated that heart failure patients are vulnerable to medication discrepancies both at admission and discharge and implementing a comprehensive medication reconciliation by clinical pharmacists could be helpful in improving medication safety in these patients.

Comparison between proactive and retroactive models of medication reconciliation in patients hospitalized for acute decompensated heart failure.

BACKGROUND: Most research on the impact of medication reconciliation on patient safety focused on the retroactive model, with limited attention given to the proactive model. OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to compare the proactive and retroactive models in patients hospitalized for acute decompensated heart failure. METHODS: This prospective, quasi-experimental study was conducted over six months, from June to November 2022, at the cardiology unit of an academic hospital in Iran. Eligible patients were those hospitalized for acute decompensated heart failure using a minimum of five regular medications before admission. Medication reconciliation was performed in 81 cases using the proactive model and in 81 using the retroactive model. RESULTS: 556 medications were reconciled using the retroactive model, and 581 were reconciled using the proactive model. In the retroactive cases, 341 discrepancies (both intentional and unintentional) were identified, compared to 231 in the proactive cases. The proportion of patients with at least one unintentional discrepancy was significantly lower in the proactive cases than in the retroactive cases (23.80% versus 74.03%). Moreover, the number of unintentional discrepancies was significantly lower in the proactive cases compared to the retroactive cases (22 out of 231 discrepancies versus 150 out of 341 discrepancies). In the retroactive cases, medication omission was the most frequent type of unintentional discrepancy (44.00). About, 42.70% of reconciliation errors detected in the retroactive cases were judged to have the potential to cause moderate to severe harm. While the average time spent obtaining medication history was similar in both models (00:27 [h: min] versus 00:30), the average time needed to complete the entire process was significantly shorter in the proactive model compared to the retroactive model (00:41 min versus 00:51). CONCLUSION: This study highlighted that the proactive model is a timely and effective method of medication reconciliation, particularly in improving medication safety for high-risk patients.

The Sustainability of the Impact of Pharmacists' Educational Programs on the Adherence to the Recommendations of Preoperative Antibiotic Prophylaxis Guidelines.

INTRODUCTION: This study was designed to evaluate the sustainability of the impact of educational programs provided by pharmacists on the appropriateness of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis and cost-savings in a short time and a long time after the intervention. METHODS AND MATERIALS: This prospective educational interventional study was conducted in a tertiary referral hospital for surgery in the West of Iran from September 2018 to October 2019. The study was designed in three phases: pre-intervention phase, short term after the intervention, and six months after the intervention. Within a one month course, several educational sessions regarding the appropriate preoperative antibiotic prophylaxis based on the recommendations of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists guideline (ASHPs) were provided by a clinical pharmacist in an interactive manner for the surgeons. The appropriateness of antibiotic prophylaxis regarding the necessity for surgical antibiotic prophylaxis use (indication), the choice of antibiotic, the timing of antibiotic administration, the route of administration, the dose of antibiotics, and the total duration of antibiotic prophylaxis were evaluated and compared before and after the educational intervention. Additionally, medication-related costs, non-medication-related costs, antibiotic prophylaxis-related costs, and total costs of care were also assessed before and after the educational intervention. RESULTS: Our survey showed that total adherence to the guideline recommendations among surgeons in our center was relatively low, and in 71.8% of procedures, at least in one of the quality indicators, non-adherence to the guideline recommendations was observed. After the educational intervention, a significant improvement in the rationality of antibiotic prophylaxis, in terms of not administrating antibiotic prophylaxis in procedures without indication, appropriate timing of administration, appropriate antibiotic dose, and appropriate duration of antibiotic prophylaxis, especially in the short time after the intervention was observed that ultimately reduced the medication, non-medication, antibiotic prophylaxis related, and total therapeutic costs. CONCLUSIONS: Our survey showed that educational interventions provided by pharmacists in an interactive manner could improve guideline recommendations' adherence among surgeons, particularly in a short time. Thus, continuous education still should be considered an essential element of a multifaceted intervention for improving guideline adherence.

Prolonged release matrix tablet of pyridostigmine bromide: formulation and optimization using statistical methods.

The aim of this study was to design and optimize a prolonged release matrix formulation of pyridostigmine bromide, an effective drug in myasthenia gravis and poisoning with nerve gas, using hydrophilic - hydrophobic polymers via D-optimal experimental design. HPMC and carnauba wax as retarding agents as well as tricalcium phosphate were used in matrix formulation and considered as independent variables. Tablets were prepared by wet granulation technique and the percentage of drug released at 1 (Y(1)), 4 (Y(2)) and 8 (Y(3)) hours were considered as dependent variables (responses) in this investigation. These experimental responses were best fitted for the cubic, cubic and linear models, respectively. The optimal formulation obtained in this study, consisted of 12.8 % HPMC, 24.4 % carnauba wax and 26.7 % tricalcium phosphate, had a suitable prolonged release behavior followed by Higuchi model in which observed and predicted values were very close. The study revealed that D-optimal design could facilitate the optimization of prolonged release matrix tablet containing pyridostigmine bromide. Accelerated stability studies confirmed that the optimized formulation remains unchanged after exposing in stability conditions for six months.

An application of multi-criteria decision-making approach to sustainable drug shortages management: evidence from a developing country.

BACKGROUND: Drug shortage is a significant public health problem, especially for drugs related to life threatening conditions. Almost all countries affected by variety of supply problems and spent a considerable amount of time and resources responding to shortage. The aim of present study is to determine and prioritize strategies to achieve best solutions for these considerable healthcare system challenges and to evaluate this strategies base on practical criteria. METHODS: To achieve the study objectives, the research was conducted in two phases. Determining of the strategies to control drug shortage, and comprehensive assessments of priority of possible strategies. For each phase, a self-design questionnaire was developed. The five main managerial strategies dimensions including: regulatory, financial, supply chain, information system and policy-making were set out. Forty-five alternatives were elicited from literature, and were evaluated and trimmed to 37 strategies based on experts' opinion. The Multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods were applied in second phase. Five important criteria including cost, time, labor, compliance with law and culture were weighed by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. Then, 37 alternatives have been rated base on the five criteria on the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) technique. RESULTS: "Creating integrated Supply chain information system to manage medicines inventory in the country", "Creating and using the databases to predict the shortage of medicines", "Using track and trace system" are alternatives 20th, 24th and 25th, which related to supply chain (SC) and information system (IS) dimensions have higher priority in the experts' point of view. The results show IS dimension has 100 percentage of priority; following that policy and supply chain have higher priority, respectively. CONCLUSION: Health systems rely on consistent supplying of pharmaceuticals to support patient care. The results show that information system, policy-making and supply chain are in the top-ranking priorities. Warning system needs to be improved to the advance system via better collaboration with stakeholders, publish precise and explicit national guidelines for drug shortage management, enforce the guidelines, and improve Iran FDA's pharmaceutical market control capability.

Pharmacy students' level of financial literacy and its differences among students with various career intentions.

BACKGROUND: Many pharmacy students will work at managerial positions after graduation, so policymakers' awareness from their level of financial literacy and intentions regarding their future career field and path might be helpful to identify existing gaps and needed interventions. The purpose of this study was to assess the level of financial literacy among pharmacy students and their intentions regarding career path and field. METHODS: Data were gathered in early 2018 using a questionnaire which consisted of three parts: questions on financial literacy, career intentions, and participants' characteristics. Data analysis included descriptive analysis, comparison of the level of financial literacy and career intention among different demographic groups, as well as the comparison of the level of financial literacy among students preferring various career fields and paths. RESULTS: A total of 173 usable questionnaires were gathered. Significant differences were observed in terms of the level of financial literacy between various groups of students' personal income, term of education, and history of receiving finance-related information from people around them. Students showed more weakness in responding to questions related to investment. It was also revealed that students with higher scores in financial literacy gave priority to fast entrance to the job market compared to other suggested career paths. CONCLUSIONS: Although improvement in all aspects of financial literacy seem required for the studied population, more weakness was observed in terms of investment questions. Community pharmacy and rapid entrance to the work market were the preferred career field and path, respectively.

Client priorities and satisfaction with community pharmacies: the situation in Tehran.

BACKGROUND: Client satisfaction is an important criterion to evaluate pharmacy services. In addition, knowledge about client satisfaction can be helpful to identify strengths and weaknesses which can be used to improve health services. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess clients' priorities and satisfaction with community pharmacy services in Tehran. SETTING: This study was conducted on clients visiting community pharmacies settled in Tehran, the capital city of Iran. METHOD: A cross-sectional descriptive study involving clients of community pharmacies was undertaken using a self-administrated anonymous questionnaire. Data were collected from 800 clients of 200 community pharmacies settled in 22 districts of Tehran. MAIN OUTCOMES MEASURE: Clients' satisfaction with four areas including community pharmacies physical space, relationship quality, consultation quality and other dimensions of service delivery, and clients' priorities about different issues related to community pharmacies. RESULTS: The study showed that client satisfaction regarding the four mentioned areas (relationship quality, physical space, consultation quality and other dimensions of service delivery) was more than the average of Likert scale (cut point = 3). However, satisfaction with consultations is not much higher than the mentioned cut point. Moreover, "observing courtesy and respect" and "computerized dispensing" showed the most and the least priority to respondents, respectively. CONCLUSION: According to the findings, it seems that a wide range of corrective actions can be performed to promote the level of client satisfaction especially in case of consultations. More importantly, clients' needs and priorities should be taken into account to select and prioritize these actions.

Investigation on barriers to pharmaceutical care in community pharmacies: a structural equation model.

OBJECTIVE: The concept of pharmaceutical care (PhC) has been popular in pharmacy during past decades. However, in some countries, including Iran, it does not seem to mature. AIM OF THE STUDY: To identify and prioritize barriers to the provision of PhC in Iranian community pharmacies, based on the perceptions of community pharmacists in Tehran. METHOD: Between August and November 2013, a cross-sectional descriptive study was performed using an anonymous questionnaire asking the pharmacists' perceptions on the implementation of PhC. Of the 2000 invited community pharmacists, 505 pharmacists responded. A descriptive analysis, was conducted, and the data were also analyzed through structural equation modeling. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Priorities of barriers to the implementation of PhC in Iran. RESULTS: Five major dimensions included in the survey instrument were confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. According to the model developed based on pharmacists' opinions, lack of pharmacists' skills and lack of appropriate regulation and environment are the two most important barriers of the provision of PhC, and the least important is lack of resources. CONCLUSION: The results show that the main barriers to PhC in Iran are the lack of skills and of appropriate regulation and environment. These main barriers are different from those mentioned in studies conducted in other countries.