Objective: In conveying and providing drug information, it is essential to ensure correct understanding of such information at clinical practice sites.  We thus used a hospital’s drug information newsletter (DI News) to analyze factors affecting how well the drug safety information provided is understood by recipients.
Methods: Targeting nurses who work at Kushiro Red Cross Hospital, we used the DI News to provide information on changes in insulin preparations, and then implemented Questionnaire Surveys 1 and 2.  An implemented Questionnaire comparison was made among the number of years at work (6 groups), between wards of internal medicine and surgical departments (2 groups), and among various wards (12 groups), and the factors affecting the degree of understanding of information were analyzed.
Results: Compared with Survey 1, the degree of understanding improved dramatically in all groups in Survey 2.  However, no significant differences were seen among the groups in the comparison based on the number of years at work, or in the comparison between internal medicine and surgical departments.  The comparison among various hospital wards, however, showed large differences in the scores for Surveys 1 and 2, with significant differences among the groups being documented (p<0.001).
Discussion: In providing important pharmaceutical information, it was deemed necessary to gain a deeper understanding of the differences among various wards and to offer individual assistance tailored to each ward.  This study revealed the importance of meticulous, personalized information services provided by ward pharmacists.

In April 2014, a Letter of Rapid Safety Communication was issued, because 21 fatalities following administration of paliperidone palmitate (PP) were reported over a 5-month period since its launch in November, 2013. At the Department of Pharmacy of Hakodate Watanabe Hospital (our hospital), we established criteria for the use of long-acting antipsychotic injections (LAIs) when we began to prescribe LAIs at our hospital and shared information on the use of LAIs with pharmacists at community pharmacies by placing seals in medication notebooks. In March 2014, we conducted a questionnaire survey of pharmacists at 223 community pharmacies in Southern Hokkaido to compared the investigation items by the percentage of prescriptions filled in by the department of psychiatry among all the prescriptions dispensed by the pharmacies. The pharmacists who answered that injectable drug use information and seals for medication notebooks were necessary accounted for 75.8% and 74.2% of the responders, respectively. On the other hand, the percentages comprising the acquisition rates of information on injectable drug use and information on the injectable drugs used were low with 12.1% and 7.6% respectively. Also, a significant difference was seen in the recognition of LAI use in the comparison by the percentage of prescriptions filled in by the department of psychiatry among all of the prescriptions dispensed by the pharmacies (p＝0.001). Our results show that collaboration between hospital pharmacists and community pharmacists is necessary to ensure the safe use of LAI.

Objective: To nurture pharmacists capable of contributing to the prevention of adverse reactions to psychotropic agents, the Sapporo Hospital Pharmacist Association has been holding a seminar for psychiatric pharmacy specialist.  A questionnaire survey was conducted to clarify the usefulness of this seminar and its future direction, and evaluate the necessity of providing information on psychotropic drugs.
Methods: An anonymous 21-item questionnaire was distributed to participants in the 2008 Sapporo Hospital Pharmacist Association seminar for psychiatric pharmacy specialist.
Results: The mean recovery rate was 76.3%, and the respondents had a broad background in terms of age, gender, etc.  The seminar was identified as being beneficial, and the participants’ awareness of the accreditation of Board Certified Pharmacist in Psychiatric Pharmacy showed regional characteristics.
Conclusion: Based on the survey results, guidelines on conducting the seminar in the future were successfully developed.  From now on, it is important to create an environment to nurture psychiatric pharmacy specialist in the Sapporo area.  Additional efforts should be made so that the provision of information on psychotropic drugs in the seminar can contribute to the prevention of adverse reactions to them.

Objective: In pharmacy school, most faculty members use generic names when discussing medicine; however, in clinical clerkships, most staff members use brand names. This sometimes leads to poor communication and understanding between the students and medical staff.  The purpose of this study was to clarify the need for a tool to improve communication and understanding in relation to drug information.  Based on the findings of this survey, our secondary aim was to develop and subsequently evaluate such a tool.
Methods: To clarify the need for a self-learning tool, we conducted a questionnaire survey on 58 faculty members who teach courses on drug informatics.  Based on their responses, we then developed a self-learning tool that was subsequently evaluated by a total of 78 undergraduate students.
Results: Most of the faculty agreed concerning the necessity of a self-learning tool for drug information, particularly in regard to the establishment of a more user-friendly system and reduced user fees for students.  The faculty also believed that students should be able to associate the generic drug name with various kinds of information, including its safety, efficacy, and brand name.  All students agreed that the tool was helpful, very easy to use, and could be learned during their commute to school.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that most faculty members support the idea of having a tool capable of promoting a better understanding and grasp of drug information.  Therefore, our self-learning tool should be helpful in promoting increased knowledge concerning drug information for students in clinical clerkships.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify existing problems related to the provision of drug information in clinical clerkships.  In addition, we aimed to develop a self-learning tool based on our findings.
Methods: We conducted a questionnaire survey on students who had completed a clinical clerkship between December 2012 and February 2013 concerning the actual status of the provision of drug information.  Based on responses received from 86 students, we then developed an online self-learning tool.  This online tool was subsequently evaluated by the same 86 students.
Results: More than 20% of students surveyed reported never having made inquiries at their clerkship site; therefore, we developed an online self-learning tool for inquiry services in which students were able to learn step-by-step how to analyze, search, evaluate and provide inquiries.  A total of 89% of the students who tried this tool reported being satisfied with its use.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that students in clinical clerkships lack sufficient experience regarding drug information-related inquiries.  Therefore, our online self-learning tool should be helpful in promoting understanding of how to manage such inquiries for students in clinical clerkships.

Objective: We search valuable information in home medical care settings that impede smooth collaboration among pharmacists, home care physicians, and home care nurses. Methods: We conducted an online survey on 120 physicians and 118 nurses on “areas perceived as overloaded with tasks,” “quality of life (QOL) evaluation of patients,” and “expectations to pharmacists.” We analyzed data using the Mann-Whitney U test and conducted the customer satisfaction (CS) analysis on “stress.” Results: Physicians answered that they had a significantly higher stress on “at night-time/holidays and weekends works” than nurses (p < 0.05). Nurses experienced significantly more stress during “inter-professional collaboration” than physicians (p < 0.01). CS analysis revealed that nurses experienced more stress for items such as “having patients with dementia self-inject correctly,” etc. Both physicians and nurses evaluated QOL items at a high frequency. Majority of physicians and nurses held high “expectations to pharmacists,” particularly for the eight items related to providing information, managing drugs, and making pharmacological judgments. Nurses had significantly high expectations to pharmacists for “management of supplements taken by the patient” (p < 0.01), “explaining drug effects” (p < 0.001), and “explaining the necessity of prescription revision” (p < 0.01). Discussion: Pharmacists should utilize information on physicians and nurses’ stress as well as understand their expectations to pharmacists to facilitate stronger coordination between both professions and contribute to patient care. In particular, many items were found to cause stress, indicating that support for nurses, who have many expectations to pharmacists, needs to be enhanced.

Objective: We search valuable information in home medical care settings that impede smooth collaboration among pharmacists, home care physicians, and home care nurses. Methods: We conducted an online survey on 120 physicians and 118 nurses on “areas perceived as overloaded with tasks,” “quality of life (QOL) evaluation of patients,” and “expectations to pharmacists.” We analyzed data using the Mann-Whitney U test and conducted the customer satisfaction (CS) analysis on “stress.” Results: Physicians answered that they had a significantly higher stress on “at night-time/holidays and weekends works” than nurses (p < 0.05). Nurses experienced significantly more stress during “inter-professional collaboration” than physicians (p < 0.01). CS analysis revealed that nurses experienced more stress for items such as “having patients with dementia self-inject correctly,” etc. Both physicians and nurses evaluated QOL items at a high frequency. Majority of physicians and nurses held high “expectations to pharmacists,” particularly for the eight items related to providing information, managing drugs, and making pharmacological judgments. Nurses had significantly high expectations to pharmacists for “management of supplements taken by the patient” (p < 0.01), “explaining drug effects” (p < 0.001), and “explaining the necessity of prescription revision” (p < 0.01). Discussion: Pharmacists should utilize information on physicians and nurses’ stress as well as understand their expectations to pharmacists to facilitate stronger coordination between both professions and contribute to patient care. In particular, many items were found to cause stress, indicating that support for nurses, who have many expectations to pharmacists, needs to be enhanced.

PEP (the study group of Practical English for Pharmacists) was started by teachers from different fields at Hokkaido Pharmaceutical University, and has been offering English conversation class for local pharmacists. As with its turning point of three years, in January 2016, it conducted an online questionnaire survey for pharmacists all over Japan. The purpose was to find their needs for learning English, as well as to make sure if PEP teaching materials were proper enough for them. The questionnaires consisted of five areas: current working situation in terms of using English; self-evaluation for their attitudes towards English-speaking customers/ patients; their preference in learning English; their foresight into the English-related situation around their job; and evaluation on PEP sample materials. Participants were 220 pharmacists at work who were interested in learning English. They were divided into two groups (Yes-group and No-group) according to the answer to the question of whether they, as a pharmacist, thought it necessary to learn English or not. The groups were compared with each other within each of the five areas mentioned above. The results showed the overall illustrations of the pharmacists today and positive evaluation for a PEP material. Most importantly, however, contrastive difference between Yes-No groups for the type of English needed was revealed (p<0.01). This was interpreted as an evidence that No-group just have a naive intention to learn English, while Yes-group have already been involved in the situations where rather high English proficiency is required for their pharmacy jobs.