- Title
- Promoting quality use of medicine in chronic respiratory diseases in Vietnam: the role of pharmacists
- Creator
- Nguyen, Tu Son
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2019
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Nowadays, the role of pharmacists has evolved to become health care providers of pharmaceutical care services that incorporates patient-orientated and product-orientated services. They not only work together with other health care providers, but also with patients in order to achieve positive outcomes for their therapeutic management. However, in Vietnam and other developing countries, both community and hospital pharmacists are still substantially under-utilised for patient care compared against the pharmaceutical care model of practice. How to improve the contribution of pharmacists in health care is still a tough question that need to be answered, especially in Vietnam with a rising number of better-qualified pharmacists as well as a shortage in other health care human resources, such as doctors and nurses. At the same time, non-communicable diseases are becoming a major public health issue putting a heavy burden on society and the economy of Vietnam. Of these diseases, prevention and treatment of COPD and asthma is contributing to several problems including increasing number of patients, high rate of non-adherence to therapy in patients, and a low proportion of patients using inhalers correctly. Therefore, in exploring how to increase the role of hospital pharmacists in Vietnam, our study has chosen inhaler technique and medication adherence to demonstrate the role of hospital pharmacists’ interventions in the management of COPD and asthma. Our findings showed that hospital pharmacists can teach COPD patients to improve their inhaler technique and counsel patients to improve adherence in a very efficient manner. The pharmacist-led programs also showed positive impact on patients’ quality of life. How to improve pharmacists’ contribution to management of asthma in the community setting is another issue that needs to be addressed. Literature showed that a continuing education program is a key strategy for the community pharmacy sector to assist in improving the management of asthma in developing countries like Vietnam. Our present study developed and evaluated an educational program for community pharmacists and evaluated its effectiveness with the simulated patient method. The study demonstrated that our training program was highly effective in equipping community pharmacists with the necessary knowledge and practical skills to counsel asthmatic patients about the management of their condition and medications. It is suggested that such education programs should be promptly implemented and made compulsory for community pharmacists in Vietnam to improve the quality of counselling for patients with asthma and other non-communicable diseases. Overall, our studies demonstrated that with proper encouragement and simple continued professional education, both hospital and community pharmacists can expand their role to contribute to better management of asthma and COPD in Vietnam. This model may produce the same positive outcomes in other chronic diseases and should be considered by the relevant authorities in Vietnam and other developing countries.
- Subject
- COPD; asthma; Vietnam; pharmacist; thesis by publication
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1404547
- Identifier
- uon:35358
- Rights
- Copyright 2019 Tu Son Nguyen
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 2 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |