|
Rohit Patel, community pharmacist, Uxbridge, Middlesex
Amanda
Jones, pharmacist manager, Harlington, London
Abdul Suleman,
community pharmacist,
Wembley
Alison Carr, research director, Clinimatrix, Surrey
Fiona
Hammond, managing director, Hammell Communications, London |
Rohit Patel (centre) with Sir Cyril Chantler and Amanda Jones |
A simple community pharmacy intervention can improve the effective use
of emollients in children with atopic eczema. This was the conclusion
of one of the winners of the 2006 Pharmaceutical Care Awards, Rohit Patel,
and his team.
In a project funded by Stiefel Laboratories, 10 pharmacists based in
Coventry, Brighton and London received training from an eczema specialist
nurse to carry out a 10–15 minute intervention in eczema patients.
Children
with atopic eczema, aged between one and seven years old, were recruited
to the project locally. A total of 50 children and their parents
were assessed and followed up.
The pharmacists reviewed the patient and/or parental management of eczema
using a standard proforma and then gave advice on the correct use of
bath and topical emollients. A full explanation of the rationale behind
the advice and a demonstration of the correct application was given,
and parents were given written information to take away with them.
Despite this being an uncontrolled pilot study, data collected one month
after the intervention showed that in some cases a reduction in symptoms
of more than 50 per cent was achieved. Most parents (78 per cent) rated
the intervention as extremely helpful or quite helpful.
Presenting the project, Jill Worby, a consultant for Hamell Communications,
said that before the study only 20 per cent of parents had ever been
shown how to apply emollient creams properly. “Community pharmacists
are well placed to deliver such an innovation within their normal practice,” she
said.
An Original
Paper describing the work of Mr Patel and his team
was published in The Journal earlier this year (PJ,
17 March, p319). |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal