Background: Pharmacy practice research can influence policy and practice, ideally remaining relevant to practice, and being translational, as well as transformational. This study aimed to explore communication between researchers and practitioners, investigating the community pharmacists' experiences around accessibility, utilisation, and preferred dissemination methods of Social Pharmacy research resources.

Methods: Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with practising pharmacists (N=20) between September 2017 and February 2018. Twelve female and 8 male participants, with an average age of 36.6 (ranging from 23 to 63) and average years of practice of 12.9 years (1.5 to 40 years), were based in metropolitan and rural areas of Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia. Interviews lasted 38 minutes on average and were recorded and transcribed verbatim, followed by an iterative thematic analysis and constant comparison.

Results: All participating pharmacists reported accessing research publications very rarely and randomly in practice - and predominantly as part of their ongoing continuing professional development (CPD). Specifically, all pharmacists reported accessing Social Pharmacy research resources extremely rarely and expressed difficulty remembering specific topics that they accessed. Social Pharmacy was perceived largely as a 'side topic' (e.g. improving adherence to a specific medicine) that occassionally accompanies the most frequently encountered practice enquiries, namely those relating to specific medicine information (referred to as 'drug knowledge'). While Social Pharmacy was recalled by most as an important topic taught during their academic studies, subsequenlty, it was perceived as less important in the commonly accessed resources or CPDs, and was instead self-taught through ongoing practice. All participants preferred the convenience and ease of accessing research publications through social media and newsletters, and at no cost to them.

Conclusions: Pharmacists recognised the limitations around accessing and engaging with Social Pharmacy resources in everyday practice. Further research is needed to elucidate how this can be addressed in a relevant, sustainable, and practitioner-guided manner.