Mapping community pharmacy services in Brazil: a scoping review

The delivery of clinical pharmacy services has been growing in Brazilian community pharmacies, and it is necessary to have a comprehensive understanding of the topic. This scoping review aimed to provide an overview of Brazilian studies about clinical pharmacy services in community pharmacies. Original research articles, with no restriction of time, study design, or patients health condition, were included. Searches were conducted in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Scielo, and Lilacs. Two reviewers conducted the screening, full-text reading, and data extraction independently. ROB and ROBINS-I were used for the assessment of quality. Charts and tables were built to summarise the data. Seventy-two articles were included. A diversity of study designs, number of participants, terms used, and outcomes was found. São Paulo and Sergipe States had the highest number of studies (n=10). Pharmacists interventions were not fully reported in 65% of studies, and most studies presented an unclear risk of bias. Studies were very diverse, impairing the comparisons between the results and hindering their reproducibility. This review suggests using guidelines and checklists for better structuration of pharmacists interventions as well as reporting results and measuring fidelity in future research. (c) 2022, Faculdade de Ciencias Farmaceuticas (Biblioteca). All rights reserved

The Intercultural Skills Graduates and Businesses in Europe Need Today

It was the aim of the two surveys with European graduates and employers respectively to investigate the importance of intercultural competencies and skills for student employability and business success for European enterprise, now and in the future. The two surveys gave important insights into key factors that support the development of intercultural skills and competencies for graduates and employers across four countries and five different European regions, as well as five distinct universities. Our analysis shows clearly that one of the most important factors is the key role of experience with, and exposure to, people from different cultural backgrounds. Both students and employers scored much higher on important intercultural competencies such as cultural empathy, cognitive flexibility, open-mindedness, and tolerance for ambiguity, if they had frequent interactions with people from other cultures. This was also true for speaking at least one or more foreign languages at an intermediate or advanced level. Foreign language competence is an important intercultural skill not only for communication but also an important way in which cultural empathy and cognitive flexibility are learned and trained. In line with these results, both students and employers who had more exposure to different cultures also felt there was more need to pay attention to intercultural issues and support the development of intercultural skills than those with less experience of different cultures. Furthermore, our results from both the student and the employer surveys seem to reflect differences between more urban/metropolitan centres and more rural areas with smaller towns. London and Bursa are the two largest cities and the most metropolitan areas in our sample with a more multicultural population, whereas Worcester and Leuven are both smaller cities and the regions with the least ethnic diversity. Halmstad falls somewhere in between with a similar size and ethnic composition of the city and region as Worcester and Leuven, but the university itself has a very multicultural and mature student body that is very similar to LSBU in central London. While we cannot directly influence these regional differences in urbanisation and multiculturalism it is certainly important to be aware of them

The Intercultural Skills Graduates and Businesses in Europe Need Today

This ERASMUS+ funded project, “Developing the cross-cultural skills of graduates in response to the needs of European enterprise”, is developed in response to recent research highlighting the importance of intercultural competencies for graduates wanting to work in Europe, the employers’ needs, and the intercultural competencies and skills higher education institutions provide. This project aims to develop the intercultural competencies of graduates in the EU by enhancing the quality and relevance of their knowledge and skills to enable them to be active professionals in the European working environment. Five Higher Education Institutions have participated in this study: University of Worcester (Project lead, UK), London South Bank University (UK), UC Leuven-Limburg (Belgium), Halmstad University (Sweden), and Bursa Uludağ University (Turkey). The diversity of these partners, their respective regional and national contexts, and their experience in working together with regional businesses are central to achieve the project aims. As the first output of the project, this report presents results based on two types of analysis methods and data collected from four European countries (UK, Sweden, Belgium, and Turkey). Firstly, two surveys and the quantitative analysis of data collected from 585 student surveys responses and 403 employer survey responses and secondly, on an analysis of qualitative data collected through 50 interviews with employees in European organizations and 50 interviews with students studying in European universities

Determination of Turbine Blade Life from Engine Field Data

It is probable that no two engine companies determine the life of their engines or their components in the same way or apply the same experience and safety factors to their designs. Knowing the failure mode that is most likely to occur minimizes the amount of uncertainty and simplifies failure and life analysis. Available data regarding failure mode for aircraft engine blades, while favoring low-cycle, thermal mechanical fatigue as the controlling mode of failure, are not definitive. Sixteen high-pressure turbine (HPT) T-1 blade sets were removed from commercial aircraft engines that had been commercially flown by a single airline and inspected for damage. Each set contained 82 blades. The damage was cataloged into three categories related to their mode of failure: (1) Thermal-mechanical fatigue, (2) Oxidation/Erosion, and (3) "Other." From these field data, the turbine blade life was determined as well as the lives related to individual blade failure modes using Johnson-Weibull analysis. A simplified formula for calculating turbine blade life and reliability was formulated. The L(sub 10) blade life was calculated to be 2427 cycles (11 077 hr). The resulting blade life attributed to oxidation/erosion equaled that attributed to thermal-mechanical fatigue. The category that contributed most to blade failure was Other. If there were there no blade failures attributed to oxidation/erosion and thermal-mechanical fatigue, the overall blade L(sub 10) life would increase approximately 11 to 17 percent

The practice of OTC counseling by community pharmacists in Parana, Brazil

Background: In order to provide appropriate advice to the patient at the time of dispensing and over-the-counter (OTC) medication counseling, community pharmacists need access to current and reliable information about medicines. Brazilian pharmacists have assumed new functions such as prescribing medication, in a dependent model, based in protocols.Objective: To examine the practice of community pharmacists in a Brazilian State, focusing on OTC recommendation.Method: A cross-sectional survey of community pharmacists in a state of Brazil was conducted from October 2013 to January 2014, with data collection through a pre-piloted self-administered anonymous survey via Survey Monkey® platform. Following ethical approval, the online instrument was sent to 8,885 pharmacists registered in Parana State, Brazil, focusing on professionals working in community pharmacies. The questionnaire assessed the community pharmacy setting, the search for information, the knowledge of the evidence-based practice, the important factors to consider when recommending an OTC medicine, and the pharmacist prescribing.  Responses were imported into SPSS® (version 22.0) for analysis. Nonparametric tests were used to assess the association between responses and demographic information with a significance level less than 5% (p<0.05).Results: Of the pharmacists, 97.4% dispensed medications and counseled patients for a median of six hours per day. Product's efficacy (97%) and adverse effects (62.3%) were the most important factors taken into account when counseling a nonprescription medicine. Few pharmacists knew the meaning of terms related to evidence-based health. Most respondents agreed that pharmacists have the necessary training to prescribe.Conclusion: Over-the-counter medication counseling is a daily practice among Brazilian pharmacists. Learning needs exist for community pharmacists in relation to evidence-based practice. Thus, sources of information with good evidence could be used daily by community pharmacists, especially as regards nonprescription medication counseling.

The Green IT Certification Ruled by the Infotercio Financial Model

Part 1: Knowledge-Based SustainabilityInternational audiencePresent article gives continuity to the elaboration of the infotercio financial model proposed as an alternative to implementing environmental management systems in governmental institutions based on the emission reduction of printed reports, source codes and forms originated from IT activities. It discusses procedures of green IT certification for managers and governmental institutions derived from ISO 14000 family and People CMM, combining both in a new set of requirements. Also it summarizes the reasons for such a certification system, noting that waste paper is now a major global problem, not only in terms of direct environmental impacts but from the point of view of the unreasonable and unnecessary use of paper in governmental business processes, generating high costs, mismanagements and time losses, at the same time causing reduction in the available physical space in corporate environments and increase in fuel consumption for transport