After we organized a community-based home medical care (HMC) training workshop composed of presentations by welfare and care workers in addition to patients’ family and targeting community pharmacists in collaboration with a regional pharmacy association, we carried out a questionnaire survey to the pharmacists in attendance to take hold on pharmacist’ opinions for the workshop and attitudes for HMC. The participants had a relatively high level of satisfaction regarding the workshop, rating an average of 7.81 out of 10.0. Among the participants, 77.5% had experience of HMC such as visiting pharmacy services at patient’ home, with the most widely practiced activity being “drug administration guidance for patients at home.” However, activities such as “accompany at the time of rounds” and “participation in conferences” were not widely practiced (less than 50% of the most activity) among the participants. Many participants responded that the key factors of HMC were the cooperation system between different professionals and its environmental arrangement. Overall, positive feedback from participants regarding this workshop was reported, through statements such as “I was able to rediscover the need for cooperation in a diverse team with differing job functions” and “the care of patients and their family was important.” We found many opinions that cooperation with other professionals is important in deepening pharmacists’ involvement in HMC, and that this workshop serves as a bridge to establish greater communication between care workers and pharmacists.

The awareness of many residents on generic drugs has increased recently, which is also reflected in their increased consumption. Enlightenment activities for citizens have become an important tool to further promote the use of generic drugs. We performed a questionnaire survey and assessed residents’ consciousness after a lecture on generic drug usage in a people’s forum. We received responses from 105 of the recruited 127 participants. Most questionnaire respondents were from the age group of 70 years and comprised about half of the sample. The respondents having undefined will to the question about use of generic drugs was the most frequent. Only a few participants answered that they hoped getting generic drugs from a pharmacy or hospital. The concerns and future requests for generic drugs were the cost of medicine, validity, safety, and quality. The middle group by which the participants were classified into a positive group, a middle group and a negative group among question on usage and request of generic drugs, in its percentage each age groups, was most. Many respondents answered that generic drug use “should be spread” after the lecture. However, it was identified that the communication between doctor, pharmacist, and the patient on generic drug use is insufficient in the open question. Enlightenment activities for citizens will become necessary because half of the respondents expressed negative opinions on the use of generic drugs.

The significance of lifelong learning is increasing in Japan’s aging society. The purpose of this study is to clarify the factors that affect the participation in lifelong learning of the elderly people in relation to subjective well-being, physical activity/exercise, and social activity. We conducted a questionnaire survey among lifelong learning participants. The contents of the questionnaire items were scored and the influence of the number of years of participation in the lifetime learning was examined using confirmatory factor analysis. There were 207 participants with an average age of 73.2 years old. In terms of health and life, most of the participants answered positively. In terms of coping with stress, many respondents had that coping strategy. Their nutritional intake and exercise habits were good. They had a high rate of health check-ups, were highly interested in disease prevention and paid attention to their health management. From the exploratory factor analysis of the questionnaire results, the five common factors behind lifelong learning participants were “subjective well-being,” “physical activity/exercise,” “subjective view of health,” “nutrition/diet,” and “social activity.” There was a negative relationship between “years of participation in lifelong learning” and “subjective well-being,” and a positive relationship between “physical activity/exercise” and “social activity” of these latent variables. In conclusion, many of the lifelong learning participants were highly conscious of their health, had acquired appropriate habits in terms of exercise and nutrition, and had a high subjective well-being. The elderly’s continuous participation in lifelong learning is beneficial for “physical activity/exercise” and “social activity.”

Objective: The number of pharmacists regularly working at geriatric health service facilities is limited, but many users of such facilities have multiple chronic conditions and receive continuous pharmacotherapy, simultaneously using numerous different types of oral drugs. We examined the outcomes of pharmacotherapeutic intervention provided by hospital pharmacists for geriatric health service facility users.Methods: We examinedthe outcomes of active pharmacotherapeutic intervention providedby hospital pharmacists for 154 facility users.Results: After the intervention, there were significant decreases in the mean number of types and price of drugs used, as they decreased from 7.38 to 6.17 and 368.3 to 309.2 yen/day, respectively. The number of prescription drugs changed was 300, and 206 of these changes were proposedby the pharmacists. The efficacy-basedcategories that these drugs belongedto widely ranged. The most frequent reasons for change were the “disappearance of symptoms”, “based on indications”, and “suspected adverse events”. Adverse events variedfrom mildto those that may leadto severe conditions.Conclusion: Pharmacotherapeutic interventions by pharmacists may optimize pharmacotherapy, reduce polypharmacy, and reduce the financial burden on geriatric health service facilities.

Objective: Owing to the increase in the rate of outpatient prescriptions each year, community pharmacists are expected to actively participate in the drug treatment of patients. Currently, tracing reports (TRs) are used as a tool to feedback patient information obtained at community pharmacies to medical institutions. However, it is reported that about 30% of community pharmacists have never used TRs. It has been reported that the use of templates can increase the use of TRs. Community pharmacists need to understand cancer chemotherapy regimens as outpatient cancer chemotherapy is increasing. The purpose of this study was to examine the utility of using hospital websites as one method of obtaining TR templates and cancer chemotherapy regimens.Methods: 348 hospital websites in Osaka Prefecture were visited between June 26 and August 28, 2022 to investigate the TR template and cancer chemotherapy regimen.Results: Among hospitals in Osaka Prefecture investigated in this study, 16.2% posted tracing reports and 24.0% posted cancer chemotherapy regimens. By the bed functions, both tracing report postings and cancer chemotherapy regimen postings decreased in the order of decreasing acuity. By secondary medical area, although there were regional differences, both tracing reports and cancer chemotherapy regimens were posted in all medical areas.Conclusions: This study allowed many of the surveyed hospitals to access their websites, and found the current status of patient information sharing tools between community pharmacies and hospitals on hospital websites. The percentage of hospitals where these tools are posted is low. However, there are hospitals in all regions that have these tools posted, and it is utility to use hospital websites as a way for community pharmacists to obtain these tools.