In order to promote the proper use of medicines, it is important to conduct effective pharmaceutical education and establish a basic knowledge of medicines. We investigated to clarify the current situation and issues of pharmaceutical education. In June 2017, we administered surveys to 1,152 junior high school third graders and 23 health and physical education teachers who taught pharmacy in junior high schools. A total of 1,079 junior high school third graders and 23 health and physical education teachers answered the survey. We found that 6.5% of the students were taking health foods and supplements, and 17.9% always carried medicines. Further, 30.7% of the students regularly checked the effects and side effects of the medicines they took. Moreover, while only 9.0% of the students knew the word “self-medication,” 66.6% had a prescription notebook. Meanwhile, 39.1% of health and physical education teachers were conducting pharmaceutical education classes. Some of them developed their own textbook. All teachers answered that they would like to promote pharmaceutical education. As it was found that junior high school third graders take medicines daily, it is important to develop an educational system that enables them to further improve pharmaceutical education in junior high schools and to acquire correct knowledge. Therefore, it is important that school pharmacists actively participate in pharmaceutical education and promote close cooperation with physical education teachers.

Drug dispensing is a statutory and designated duty of a pharmacist. We aimed to examine the changes in the nature of drug dispensing using a text mining method. Our corpus consisted of text documents from “Chozai Shishin”, the most standard manual for dispensing drugs in Japan, Editions 1 to 13 (Japan Pharmaceutical Association), and we used the KH Coder software for text mining. We constructed networks showing the association between frequent word co-occurrence and edition number, and co-occurrence relations for frequent words in each edition. We found that “patient” superseded “dispensing” as a frequent term over time. “Dispensing” was another frequent term with a highly centralized node in each edition. Accordingly, we targeted the term “dispensing” for network analysis to depict its co-occurrence relations. We found that the range of related words for “dispensing” broadened from “preparation” and “compounding” to include “patient adherence instructions”, “assessment”, “medical treatment”, and “information provision”. Accordingly, we concluded that the content of “dispensing”, which is a pharmacist’s duty, has expanded from the duties of “dispensing drugs” to include “responding to patients” within the definition of “dispensing”, and we were able to present this finding as objective data by using the mechanical method known as text mining.

Objective: We search valuable information in home medical care settings that impede smooth collaboration among pharmacists, home care physicians, and home care nurses. Methods: We conducted an online survey on 120 physicians and 118 nurses on “areas perceived as overloaded with tasks,” “quality of life (QOL) evaluation of patients,” and “expectations to pharmacists.” We analyzed data using the Mann-Whitney U test and conducted the customer satisfaction (CS) analysis on “stress.” Results: Physicians answered that they had a significantly higher stress on “at night-time/holidays and weekends works” than nurses (p < 0.05). Nurses experienced significantly more stress during “inter-professional collaboration” than physicians (p < 0.01). CS analysis revealed that nurses experienced more stress for items such as “having patients with dementia self-inject correctly,” etc. Both physicians and nurses evaluated QOL items at a high frequency. Majority of physicians and nurses held high “expectations to pharmacists,” particularly for the eight items related to providing information, managing drugs, and making pharmacological judgments. Nurses had significantly high expectations to pharmacists for “management of supplements taken by the patient” (p < 0.01), “explaining drug effects” (p < 0.001), and “explaining the necessity of prescription revision” (p < 0.01). Discussion: Pharmacists should utilize information on physicians and nurses’ stress as well as understand their expectations to pharmacists to facilitate stronger coordination between both professions and contribute to patient care. In particular, many items were found to cause stress, indicating that support for nurses, who have many expectations to pharmacists, needs to be enhanced.

Since attention is sometimes required with regard to the use and handling of external medications or injection drugs in drug therapy, patients may have a feeling of “inconvenience”. We, therefore, focused on a feeling of “inconvenience when using” external medications and injection drugs, and conducted a questionnaire survey to investigate the level of awareness and current status of using assist devices that can effectively reduce such inconvenience. The survey took place at a pharmacy, and involved interviews using a questionnaire. Of the 197 respondents, valid responses were obtained from 147 individuals (74.6%). As the results, 25.9% of individuals using external medications or injection drugs responded ‘yes’ concerning the feeling of “inconvenience when using” them. In addition, 39.4% of individuals using eye drops and 10.5% of those using insulin similarly responded. However, only 10.9% knew of the availability of assist devices that are expected to reduce the inconvenience. The results revealed that a certain number of people feel the “inconvenience” of external dosage forms investigated in this study, suggesting the need for pharmacists to consider that patients may have problems using their medications, and to recommend and support the use of assist devices that can be operated by patients.

The demand for pharmacy services has increased recently, and the skills required for pharmacists have also advanced. Therefore, it is important to implement a working system in which experienced pharmacists can continue working full-time when they require child care or nursing care. In September 2016, we conducted a survey of hospital pharmacists on their work-life balance at a symposium of the 26th annual meeting of the Japanese Society of Pharmaceutical Health Care and Sciences. The purpose of this survey was to examine the current trends and issues of hospital pharmacists’ experience of work-life balance in Japan. A total of 84 responses were included for analysis. Overall, 68.4% of pharmacists reported that they were not satisfied with their work-life balance, and 65.8% reported that they were not satisfied with their working environment. In addition, 90.4% of hospital pharmacists reported they worked overtime, and 76.3% reported that their workload level at their place of practice was high; therefore, they could not complete their duties within regular work hours. Seventy four percent of hospital pharmacists answered that they will not able to continue working if they encounter life events such as childbirth and caring for children or parents. These results show that a majority of hospital pharmacists was not satisfied with their work-life balance, and they were concerned about continuing their pharmacy career when they encountered certain life events. As such, it is critical that each work place implement policies on work-life balance to further help support their pharmacists.

【Objective】 Nowadays, the pharmacist’s work changed from product-centered to patient-centered care. In this research, we make it clear through patient’s talk what a patient expects of a family pharmacist and a pharmacy. We think it is utilized to construct a communication standard required for family pharmacists. 【Method】 Focus group interviews were conducted with 3 groups of 11 patients who utilize pharmacies, recruited through snowball sampling. Interview data were categorized using qualitative analysis method. 【Results】 As a result of analysis, 7 categories and 43 subcategories were generated. Based on these, a diagram was created representing the relationships between categories. 【Discussion】 The generated categories indicated “factors influencing patient’s relationship with pharmacists” and subcategories indicated “requests to or expectations from pharmacists by patients.” Many of them overlapped with the image of “family pharmacist/pharmacy” depicted in the “Pharmacy Vision for Patients” indicated by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 2017. Meanwhile, patients wanted attitude, ethics, and sense of mission as basic qualifications originally required in a medical professional. Moreover, the research showed broader viewpoints and expectations for advanced communication skills such as support of patient’s self-determination of medication, relationship between the patient and the physician, and consideration of social and economic background of the patient.

The expansion of home medical care and the growth in sales of OTC, coupled with Japan’s aging society and the need to reduce medical costs has broadened the role of the pharmacist to include physical assessment. In response, the Kindai University Faculty of Pharmacy, implemented the Physical Assessment Practical Training Course (PAPTC) to improve the physical assessment skills of pharmacy students and practicing pharmacists. In order to investigate pharmacy students’ and practicing pharmacists’ perceptions of PAPTC, a questionnaire using a five-part, forced- choice Lykert type scale was conducted. The results of the questionnaire were analyzed using factor analysis and cluster analysis. The total number of respondents was 456. Three hundred thirteen of the respondents were students, and 143 of the respondents were practicing pharmacists. Factor analysis revealed four factors which we titled, “Physical Assessment Skills”, “Physical Assessment Course”, “Pharmacist Jobs” and, “Knowledge Required by Pharmacist”. Subsequently, cluster analysis identified two distinct groups. Group A which constituted primarily of pharmacy students, and Group B which consisted primarily of practicing pharmacists. Each group displayed notable differences in perceptions related to PAPTC. These differences may be influenced by perceptions toward “skills” and/or “knowledge”. These findings suggest that in order to better address the motivational needs of the participants, PAPTC should be divided into two courses. One, for knowledge-based instruction, and other for skill-based practice.

Inhaled corticosteroids should be taken continuously. As the methods of inhalation vary depending on the pharmaceutical preparations of inhaled corticosteroids, satisfactory effects cannot be expected without proper inhalation. This paper deals with the assessment of inhalational skills with the use of a manual of corticosteroid inhalation and a check sheet of patients’ performance. The effective inhalation as judge by the combination of the speed and the time needed for inhalation was assessed with the help of the training device for inhalation of each inhaled corticosteroid. The average scores of inhalational skills were increased significantly as follow ; aerosol : from 3.8 to 4.9 (p=0.035), Turbuhaler: from 2.6 to 3.0 (p=0.003), discus: from 4.9 to 6.0 (p<0.001). Among 7 in patients (38.9%) who were insufficient in inhalational ability, except for 1 patient who interrupted medication, 4 and 2 patients were improved in the speed and the time needed for inhalation, respectively. It was suggested to advise physicians to dispense alternative preparations of inhaled corticosteroids depending on the repeated evaluation of the inhalational ability.

The core curriculum of the pharmacy education model was revised in 2013 based on the “Basic competencies required of a pharmacist” that should be developed by graduation. Specific behavioral objectives to acquire include competency in “The ability to implement pharmacotherapeutic management”, which involves gaining the ability to understand patient information, prescription design and proposal, as well as pharmacotherapeutic assessment. In order to improve this ability, it is necessary for students to acquire basic knowledge about pathology, pharmacology, and pharmacotherapy and to integrate and apply this knowledge to patients in practice. We introduced an integrated program called “Integrated Clinical Pharmacy” for fifth-year students at Hokkaido Pharmaceutical University. In this program, students take an objective test on the basic knowledge of pathology, pharmacology, and pharmacotherapy and learn how to design pharmaceutical care plans using individual patient cases. A self-evaluation questionnaire survey about the ability to develop care plan was conducted on students who completed the program. Based on the objective test and self-evaluation questionnaire results, we studied whether basic knowledge was fully established and whether the ability to utilize this knowledge was acquired through this program. We found that although the ability to select an individual component of care plan did improve, this ability wasn’t correlated with the degree of basic knowledge, and performance in summarizing care plan did not improve. These results suggested that it is necessary to understand the connection between components of the care plan and strategies to focus on improving the ability to integrate basic knowledge.

The questionnaire was distributed to caregivers regarding their management for home medication therapy. The purpose of this questionnaire was to clarify the role of community pharmacists in city “Z”, Hiroshima in supporting this activity. The results were compared among seven administrative zones. The percentage of caregivers who had routinely administered medications to dependent patients was 81%. Of these, the percentage of caregivers who had encountered difficulty in medication administration to dependent patients was 66%. Only 13% of these caregivers had sought assistance from pharmacists in dealing with issues they faced in the administration of medications. The percentage of caregivers who had easy access to pharmacists was 44%. The percentage of caregivers who received pharmacist-initiated information about patients was 23%. Among the 7 administrative zones in city “Z”, the 2 zones (H-zones) with the highest percentage of elderly citizens, 38.7%, were compared with the other 2 zones (L-zones) with the lowest percentage of elderly citizens, 25.7%, regarding medication management by caregivers. It was observed that the frequency of missing side effects or crushing medicines by caregivers was higher in H-zones as compared to L-zones. The results of this research suggest that close cooperation between pharmacists and caregivers improves the quality of medication therapy management. In an aging society, pharmacist intervention could be very beneficial to providing support and information that would improve the quality of patients’ medication therapy.