Assessment of Pharmacists Prescribing Practices in Poland-A Descriptive Study

Overview

Journal Healthcare (Basel)

Specialty Health Services

Date 2021 Nov 27

PMID 34828552

Citations 4

Authors

Agnieszka Zimmermann

Jakub Placzek

Natalia Wrzosek

Artur Owczarek

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Pharmacists play a beneficial role in supplying medicines to patients. Pharmacist prescribing practices were introduced into law in Poland in 2002, permitting pharmacists to prescribe medications in emergency situations and in 2020 the new law allowed to prescribe in all situation where it is needed because of the health risks reasons. Our aim was to analyze pharmacist prescribing practices in Poland and confirm the useful of pharmacists' activity in this area. Additionally, pharmacists were also authorized to issue reimbursed prescriptions for themselves or their family members. Since January 2020, only e-prescriptions are allowed in Poland. A retrospective analysis of the inspection written reports from 842 community pharmacies in the representative region of Poland with a population of two million, carried out in the time period from 2002 to 2016 was performed (2189 prescriptions) to assess the emergency pharmacist prescribing practices in Poland. The second part of the research was based on digital data on pharmacists prescriptions (18,529) provided by the e-Health Centre (a governmental organization under the Ministry of Health responsible for the development of health care information systems in Poland), enabling to conduct the analysis of pharmacist's prescribing from 1 of April 2020 to 31 of October 2020. The analysis gave the insight of the evolution of the pharmacy prescribing patterns. In general, pharmaceutical prescriptions were issued in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, in town- or city center pharmacies, and in pharmacies in residential areas. The most common reason for a pharmaceutical prescription was that the patient was running out of a medicine and was unable to contact their physician. Cardiovascular, respiratory, dermatological, and digestive medications were most frequently prescribed. An analysis of pharmacists' prescribing data from 1 April 2020 to 31 October 2020 confirmed the rapid increase of pharmaceutical prescriptions following implementation of the new legislative act during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Citing Articles

Assessment of the Prescribing Pharmacist's Role in Supporting Access to Prescription-Only Medicines-Metadata Analysis in Poland.

Owczarek A, Marciniak D, Jezior R, Karolewicz B Healthcare (Basel). 2023; 11(24).

PMID: 38131996 PMC: 10743265. DOI: 10.3390/healthcare11243106.

Protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials, cost-benefit analysis and interrupted time-series interventions on pharmacist's prescribing.

Elnour A, Raja N, Abdi F, Mostafiz F, Elmubarak R, Khalil A Pharm Pract (Granada). 2023; 20(3):2713.

PMID: 36733516 PMC: 9851817. DOI: 10.18549/PharmPract.2022.3.2713.

Uptake of community pharmacist prescribing over a three-year period.

Grant A, Trenaman S, Stewart S, Liu L, Fisher J, Jeffers E Explor Res Clin Soc Pharm. 2023; 9:100221.

PMID: 36703714 PMC: 9871298. DOI: 10.1016/j.rcsop.2023.100221.

Extended Prescribing Roles for Pharmacists in Poland-A Survey Study.

Miszewska J, Wrzosek N, Zimmermann A Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022; 19(3).

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