Exploring pharmaceutical communication

Obedience to collaboration: compliance, adherence and concordance

A literature review was conducted to gain an overview of the use of the terms ‘compliance,’ ‘adherence’ and ‘concordance’ alongside the meanings that have been attached to them. A search of English...

The role of community pharmacies during the COVID-19 pandemic

Pharmacies have played a vital role during the pandemic, not only by ensuring a stable supply of key medicines, but also in becoming an information hub regarding the virus. Many pharmacies are now the...

Drug Breakdown: Dapagliflozin

Day 1: In the mid 19th century, phlorizin extracted from the root bark of the apple tree was found to cause glycosuria; there was poor oral absorption and also, because non-selective, the inhibition...

Complexity of fall prevention and whether deprescribing fall-risk-increasing drugs works

Being one of the leading causes of death in the elderly, falls can cause numerous health complications. Prescribing is important to protect the health of the frail and vulnerable, just as much as the...

Treatment advances in mental health

This month we are going to look at some interesting and applicable advances in the area of treatment of bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety. Some new research is examined and implications...

Carbon footprints and pharmacy

Managing the side effects of contraception

Headache is a reported side effect of all hormonal methods of contraception, but is also very common in women of reproductive age, particularly those age >35 years old (Grossman Barr, 2010). Because...

Pharmacokinetics in paramedic prescribing

Absorption is the process a drug undergoes to enter the circulation. The most common route is the oral route, where drugs are ingested orally, and then absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract into...

Treating post-renal transplant surgical site infection with combination therapy: a case study

A 61-year-old Azerbaijani woman was admitted to Imam Khomeini hospital in Urmia, in north west Iran. She had a kidney transplant on 5 October 2018. The patient had a history of end-stage renal disease...

Macrolides vs penicillin and potential risk during pregnancy

A team of researchers at University College of London analysed the association between macrolide antibiotics prescribed during pregnancy and major malformations, as well as four neurodevelopmental...

Antimicrobial prescribing in SARS-CoV-2

In this article by Stevens et al (2020) we start to see some early evidence looking at the rate and spectrum of antibiotic prescribing being collected in a single centre study.