Prevention, education and counselling: the worldwide role of the community pharmacist as an epidemiological sentinel of headaches

AbstractHeadache disorders are the third among the worldwide causes of disability, measured in years of life lost to disability. Given the pharmacies ’ importance in general in headache patient and, in particular in migraine patient management, various studies have been carried out in recent years dealing with this issue. Indeed, in 2014, our research group first analysed publications on a number of studies conducted worldwide. As five years ha ve passed since our first analysis of the literature and having carried out a number of specific studies in Italy since 2014, we wish to analyse once again the studies carried out globally on this topic to evaluate how the situation has evolved in the meantime. The key words used for the bibliograph ic search were “community pharmacy” and “headache”; we considered articles published between 2014 and 2018. The selected studies regarded Sweden USA, Belgium, Ireland, Jordan and Ethiopia. From the analysis of the international research papers, it is evident that, despite the time that has p assed since the previous analyses and the general agreement that pharmacists find themselves in an ideal position to offer adequate levels of counselling to headache patients, the knowledge of pharmacists is not yet sufficient. Clearly, there is a strong need to develop training programmes specifica lly focused on this subject. Regarding Italy, a national study, commenced in 2016, was designed as a cross-sectional survey employing face-to-face...
Source: Neurological Sciences - Category: Neurology Source Type: research