Pharmacy based smoking cessation practices, training needs and patient perspectives

Abstract

In recent years, community pharmacy has been recognised as an essential component of the primary healthcare system. Within the profession, there has been a paradigm shift from conventional medicine supply roles to the provision of specialised health services. Within this time frame, community pharmacists have demonstrated the capacity and efficaciousness in delivering various disease management programs. A potential role of pharmacists that has been recently suggested is their involvement in the public health and health promotion arena. Pharmacists, thus, have expanded their scope of activities to include the delivery of preventative health screening strategies and the provision of a wide range of services that aim at improving the health and well-being of patients. Given this growing pharmacy-based interest in the public health agenda, smoking cessation undoubtedly represents a potential area that pharmacists should focus on. Despite the fact that pharmacists represent key leaders of the healthcare system in Australia, little is known about their involvement in the delivery of evidence-based smoking cessation interventions. Therefore, the overarching aim of this thesis was to explore the configuration of Australian community pharmacy-based smoking cessation practices as part of a proposed future model that could enhance and standardise the delivery of smoking cessation interventions.