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dc.contributor.authorHattingh, H Laetitia
dc.contributor.authorHallett, Jonathan
dc.contributor.authorTait, Robert J
dc.date.accessioned2018-01-23T01:00:38Z
dc.date.available2018-01-23T01:00:38Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.identifier.issn1471-2458
dc.identifier.doi10.1186/s12889-016-3805-3
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10072/352707
dc.description.abstractBackground: Screening and brief interventions (SBI) for alcohol related problems have been shown to be effective in health settings such as general practice or emergency departments. Recent data from the United Kingdom and New Zealand suggest that SBI can be delivered through community pharmacies, but this approach has not been tested in Australia. This study assesses the feasibility of delivering alcohol SBI via community pharmacists. Method: We recruited five pharmacies and developed an SBI training package to be delivered by pharmacy staff, who screened consumers and delivered the brief intervention where appropriate. Consumers also completed a questionnaire on the process. At three months consumers were telephoned to enable ‘retention’ to be quantified. After completing recruitment, a semi-structured interview was conducted with pharmacists on the process of delivering the intervention, potential improvements and sustainability. Results: Fifty consumer participants were screened, ten from each pharmacy. There were 28 (57 %) men and 21 (43 %) women with one not responding. Most (67 %) were aged 25–55 years. Their AUDIT scores had a range of 0 to 39 (mean 10.9, SD 9.8) with 11 categorised as ‘hazardous (8–15)’, four as ‘harmful (16–19)’ and eight as ‘probably dependent (20+)’ consumers of alcohol. Reactions to the process of SBI were generally favourable: for example 75 % agreed that it was either appropriate or very appropriate being asked about their alcohol consumption. With respect to follow-up interviews, 23 (46 %) agreed that they could be contacted, including five from the highest AUDIT category. Subsequently 11 (48 %) were contactable at three months. Three of the five non-low risk drinkers had reduced their level of risk over the three months. Ten pharmacists participated in semi-structured telephone interviews. Overall these pharmacists were positive about the intervention and five main themes emerged from the interviews: 1) flexibility applied in recruitment of participants, 2) easiness in use of AUDIT score to facilitate discussions, 3) perceived positive intervention impact, 4) enhanced role of community pharmacists and 5) facilitators and challenges experienced. Conclusions: Pharmacy-based SBI appears to be acceptable to consumers and feasible for pharmacy staff to deliver. Challenges remain in translating this potential into actual services.
dc.description.peerreviewedYes
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherBioMed Central
dc.relation.ispartofpagefrom1141-1
dc.relation.ispartofpageto1141-12
dc.relation.ispartofjournalBMC Public Health
dc.relation.ispartofvolume16
dc.subject.fieldofresearchClinical pharmacy and pharmacy practice
dc.subject.fieldofresearchHealth services and systems
dc.subject.fieldofresearchPublic health
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode321403
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode4203
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode4206
dc.title'Making the invisible visible' through alcohol screening and brief intervention in community pharmacies: an Australian feasibility study
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.descriptionC1 - Articles
dc.type.codeC - Journal Articles
dcterms.licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.description.versionVersion of Record (VoR)
gro.description.notepublicPage numbers are not for citation purposes. Instead, this article has the unique article number of 1141.
gro.rights.copyright© The Author(s) 2016. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
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gro.griffith.authorHattingh, Laetitia L.


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