Advances in Pharmaceutical and Ethnomedicines

Short Communication
Adv. pharm. ethnomed. 2 (1): 7 - 9
http://dx.doi.org/10.14737/journal.ape/2014/2.1.7.9
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Gulzeb Aziz*, Waqar Ahmed, Muhammad Furqan, Muhammad Ahsin Saddique
Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Oslo, Norway
*Corresponding author: gulzebaziz@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Community pharmacists are key players for finding and preventing drug interactions in health care system in developed countries. In Norway more than 750 community pharmacies are providing health care services to the local community. Community pharmacists are actively engaged in providing better health care and pharmaceutical services to patients. Medical practitioners are well aware of the role and importance of community pharmacists and this well provide extra check and balance on them and ultimately better patient care. Medical practitioners as well as specialists are in direct contact with community pharmacist to manage different drug interactions. Here we report the survey conducted among 150 patients, who came to pharmacy to pick up their prescription and using more than one medicine for a chronic disease in province of Akershus, Norway. Survey was anonymous and it explains the purpose of data collection. The result presented here in this manuscript indicates that 85.35 % patients are extremely satisfied from the role of community pharmacists in finding and informing patients about the drug interactions while rest of 14.65 % are not satisfied from the role of community pharmacist and they need more professional engagement of the community pharmacist. This report concludes with comments that community pharmacists are doing active role in maintaining patient safety and providing them better pharmaceutical services.

Key Words: Community pharmacist, Drug interactions, Health care system