The professional responsibilities of pharmacists with respect to natural health products: Focus group discussions with pharmacists and consumers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objective: Although natural health products (NHPs) are widely sold in pharmacies, the professional responsibilities of pharmacists with respect to these products have not been well defined. This study addressed the question: what are the pharmacist and consumer perspectives on the professional responsibilities of pharmacists with respect to NHPs? Method: Focus groups with practicing pharmacists and consumers were held in 4 different cities across Canada (Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, and Halifax) for a total of 16 focus groups. Current and potential professional responsibilities of pharmacists with respect to NHPs were discussed in each group. Verbatim transcripts of each group were assessed using qualitative content analysis. Results: Both pharmacists and consumers were supportive of pharmacists’ involvement with natural health products and the need for pharmacists to have more education on them. The management of interactions between pharmaceuticals and NHPs and the provision of counselling on NHPs were identified as the primary responsibilities for pharmacists. Participants perceived NHPs as being distinct from other over-the-counter products and voiced concerns about the safety, efficacy, and product quality of NHPs, which may pose a barrier for pharmacists in performing these roles. Conclusion: Pharmacists and consumers agree that pharmacists have a significant role to play in counselling patients about natural health products, especially about the potential for drugNHP interactions. However, in order for pharmacists to fulfill this role, additional education about NHPs is needed both in undergraduate and continuing education programs. Standards of practice for this role would also help pharmacists understand their professional responsibilities. I was inspired to undertake this study because I believe pharmacists have an opportunity to develop a unique and credible professional role for themselves as expert advisers on natural health products in order to reduce the risks associated with the use of these products. D. Kwan
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.016 | 0.020 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.010 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".