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The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7229 p881
21/28 December 2002

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Pharmacists could advise patients about depression more extensively

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• Practice-based pharmaceutical services: a systematic review
(A. Fish)

• Patient receipt of, and preferences for receiving, antidepressant information
(B. Sleath and K. Wurst)

• Perceptions of young women using SSRI antidepressants — a reclassification of stigma
(P. Knudsen et al)

• Attitudes of community pharmacists in the Netherlands towards adverse drug reaction reporting
(A.C. van Grootheest et al)

• Nurse prescribing from the community nurse's perspective
(K.A. Luker and G.A. McHugh)

• Pro-Change adult smokers program: Northumberland pilot
(C. Anderson and A. Mair)

Pharmacists could play a much greater role as first-line advisers on depression and its treatment, according to researchers from the department of medicines management at Keele University.

Mary Landers and colleagues interviewed 20 community pharmacists about their involvement in the management of depression and discovered that pharmacists generally saw their role as encouraging patients to take antidepressants. They also found that pharmacists provided technical information, mainly when the first prescription for antidepressants was dispensed. However, the range and nature of questions that patients asked suggest that pharmacists are viewed as experts on both the illness and on medicines.

The researchers comment that some pharmacists are attempting to respond to the needs of patients who do not want to consult their GP about depression. They add that in some cases patients' needs are surpassing pharmacists' skills.

They say: "The type and extent of support pharmacists provided to patients was constrained by their reluctance to risk conflict [with general practitioners]. In this respect community pharmacists are regularly faced with ethical dilemmas ... where the needs of the patient and the intention of the physician may apparently be at odds."

The researchers conclude that professional boundaries need to be redefined if the care of patients with depression is to be improved (International Journal of Pharmacy Practice 2002;10:253).