'A behavioural approach to pharmacy practice', edited by Paul Gard. Pp ix + 166. Price £16.99. London: Blackwell Science Ltd, 2000. ISBN 0 632 05138 8.
The pharmacy curriculum in the United Kingdom is beginning to catch up with those in North America and Scandinavia in incorporating a significant element of social and behavioural sciences as applied to pharmacy practice. As with any newly emergent subject area, supporting texts tend to be thin on the ground and, for some time, students have been poorly served with few textbooks specifically addressing these aspects of pharmacy practice within a UK context.
Paul Gard's edited collection is a welcome addition, addressing as it does selected elements of pharmacy practice drawing extensively on health psychology. The book's contributors are drawn principally from academic departments of pharmacy so it may be assumed that the contents reflect the requirements of the pharmacy curriculum.
Communication skills reamain at the core of effective service delivery and this is covered succinctly in the opening chapter. Refreshingly, it touches on communication via the telephone - a frequent occurrence in pharmacies but one that is seldom addressed in textbooks.
Psychological perspectives are also applied to health promotion, patients' perception of illness, non-adherence to medication regimens, drug dependency and the placebo effect. Perhaps with the exception of the last, these are all staples in pharmacy practice.
The inclusion of two chapters dealing with team working and ethnic composition of the pharmacy workforce draw on theories of management and sociology and testify to the scope of a behavioural approach to pharmacy practice.
This book provides students and practitioners alike with a grounding in the application of behavioural science to pharmacy - and not before time.
Reviewer - Geoffrey Harding is senior lecturer in primary care research in the department of general practice and primary care at Barts and the Royal London school of medicine