Background

The opioid crisis is a global public health issue, especially present in the United States. Limited research addresses pharmacists’ opioid medication counseling practices particularly their risk and safety counseling practices.

Objectives

The objective of this paper is to categorize pharmacists based on their opioid risk and safety counseling practices to inform future interventions and research to improve practice. The percent of pharmacists falling into each of these underlying, unobservable subgroups is identified using latent class analysis.

Methods

This study was conducted as a statewide survey of pharmacists using the modified Dilman technique. The survey consisted of ten items about pharmacists’ opioid risk and safety practices when dispensing an opioid medication. Descriptive statistics were conducted followed by latent class analysis. This approach categorized pharmacists based on their responses to the survey items.

Results

Responses from 216 pharmacists were used in this study. In the three-class model which was deemed the best fit, the first class shows a profile of pharmacists who counsel on almost all opioid risk and safety topics and composed 16.75% of the total respondent population. The second class shows a profile of pharmacists who hardly counsel on any opioid risks and safety topics and comprised 39.80% of the respondent population. The third class shows a profile of pharmacists counseling on opioid risk and safety topics mostly for new or long-term prescriptions, but not for refill or short-term prescriptions. This group constituted 43.45% of the respondent population.

Conclusion

This study identifies distinct classes of pharmacists in terms of the frequency with which their opioid counseling does or does not include key elements of risk and safety topics. A small minority usually include the risk and safety issues. Training and resource interventions targeting pharmacists who do not counsel patients about opioid risks are important to help them become more comfortable and adept as opioid risk and safety educators.

中文翻译：

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药剂师阿片类药物风险和安全咨询实践：潜在类别分析方法

背景

阿片类药物危机是一个全球公共卫生问题，尤其是在美国。有限的研究涉及药剂师的阿片类药物咨询实践，特别是他们的风险和安全咨询实践。

目标

本文的目的是根据他们的阿片类药物风险和安全咨询实践对药剂师进行分类，为未来的干预和研究提供信息以改进实践。使用潜在类别分析确定落入这些潜在的、不可观察的子组中的药剂师的百分比。

方法

这项研究是使用改进的 Dilman 技术对全州的药剂师进行的调查。该调查包括十项关于药剂师在分配阿片类药物时的阿片类药物风险和安全实践的项目。进行描述性统计，然后进行潜在类别分析。这种方法根据药剂师对调查项目的回答对他们进行分类。

结果

本研究使用了 216 名药剂师的反馈。在被认为最合适的三级模型中，第一级显示了药剂师的概况，他们就几乎所有阿片类药物的风险和安全主题提供咨询，占总受访者的 16.75%。第二类显示了几乎不就任何阿片类药物风险和安全主题提供建议的药剂师的概况，占受访者人口的 39.80%。第三类显示了药剂师就阿片类药物风险和安全主题提供咨询的概况，主要针对新处方或长期处方，但不针对补充或短期处方。该群体占被调查人群的43.45%。

结论

本研究根据他们的阿片类药物咨询是否包含风险和安全主题的关键要素的频率确定了不同类别的药剂师。一小部分通常包括风险和安全问题。针对不向患者提供阿片类药物风险咨询的药剂师的培训和资源干预对于帮助他们变得更加舒适和熟练作为阿片类药物风险和安全教育者非常重要。