Assessing a Medication Safety and Disposal Educational Program using the Health Belief Model

Background: Self-medication practices continue to grow due to reclassification of prescription to OTC status and self-care information on the internet, however unintended injuries and inappropriate use of medications continue to challenge healthcare providers during the provision of patient care.  Pharmacists have an integral role in pharmacovigilance and patient education activities to ensure safe medication use, storage, and disposal practices. Objectives:  The objective of this medication safety and disposal educational program was to provide comprehensive informational support to the community coupled with an assessment using the Health Belief Model (HBM) to gauge participants’ perceived behavior change. Methods:  The HBM was selected to assess the understanding of the community members' benefits and barriers to safe medication practices.  The HBM posits that health behaviors are influenced by perceptions of a diseases’ severity, perceived susceptibility, perceived barriers to health practices, perceived benefits of health practices, self-efficacy, and cues to action.  An 8 item pre/post survey following the HBM constructs was developed which used a 5 point Likert scale. Results:  A total of 25 senior participants attended the educational program.  Twenty-three pre/post surveys were completed (RR=92%).  Five items revealed a statistically significant change from pre to post-educational content including understanding risk of herbal/OTC products (p=0.021), improved awareness of medication disposal methods (p=0.044), comprehension of OTC ‘Drug Facts’ information (p=0.004), understanding OTC label information to prevent medication interactions and side effects (p=0.008), and routinely reviewing expiration dates on medications and disposing of these properly (p=0.019). Conclusion:  This study suggests a comprehensive approach which covers a wide range of medication safety topics and disposal practices can successfully improve the knowledge and skill of community participants and potentially improve medication harm reduction practices

Implementation of a statewide program within community pharmacies to prevent opioid misuse and accidental overdose

Objective: To describe the implementation of a statewide pharmacy program called ONE Rx (Opioid and Naloxone Education) within community pharmacies.Setting: Thirty community pharmacies.Practice description: Community pharmacies throughout the state of North Dakota were invited to participate. Pharmacists in North Dakota can legally prescribe and dispense naloxone.Practice innovation: ONE Rx is a statewide program that provides pharmacists with the education and tools to screen every patient who was prescribed an opioid medication for the risk of opioid misuse and accidental overdose. The goal of ONE Rx is to prevent opioid misuse and accidental overdose through patient screening and individualized education and intervention within the community pharmacy.Evaluation: Outcomes to measure the implementation of ONE Rx included the number of pharmacists and technicians who participated in the training, the number of pharmacies who chose to implement ONE Rx, and the number of patients screened for the risk of opioid misuse and accidental overdose.Results: The ONE Rx training was completed by 240 pharmacists and 41 registered pharmacy technicians. Thirty community pharmacies implemented the program between October 2018 and May 2019, and more than 1700 patients were screened for the risk of opioid misuse and accidental overdose.Conclusion: A statewide program to screen for opioid misuse and accidental overdose was successfully implemented.North Dakota Department of Human ServicesBlue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota Caring FoundationAlex Stern Foundatio