Question

hello, I am writing an article why pharmacists need to be utilized as precribers in the U.S in effort to help accessibility for women to obtain birth control?

any thoughts based on evidence?
please provide reference of articles.

Answer 1

•There are many challenges to birth manipulate access in the United States (US), together with fees of clinic visits, difficulties getting an appointment, required annual checkups, the time required for sanatorium visits, restrictions on the range of packs of prescription contraceptives dispensed, and the confined period in which prescriptions can be refilled . One method is to create additional access factors at community pharmacies by means of expanding the pharmacist scope of exercise at the country level to encompass prescribing of contraception.

•In a survey of US women, 67% indicated that they would for my part advantage from now not having to pay for a physician or clinic visit if they ought to get entry to hormonal contraception directly at the pharmacy . In addition, 85% indicated that they would benefit from the convenient locations and hours of neighborhood pharmacies because of the saved time and lack of a required appointment . Since neighborhood pharmacists are uniquely reachable and oftentimes used as first-line medical advisors, they are also in a function to provide education and medical offerings for contraception, which includes schooling and referrals for long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) .

•While over-the-counter contraception has been discussed for almost 20 years and exists in different countries, all hormonal contraceptives with the sole exception of levonorgestrel emergency contraceptive tablets continue to be prescription-only in the United States. While the prescription-only reputation remains unchanged, states have begun expanding their pharmacist scope of exercise to encompass prescribing of contraception under statewide collaborative exercise agreement or protocol or doling out underneath statewide standing order . States can also permit for character collaborative exercise agreements.

•The first state to mainly increase this authority used to be California . California’s law became positive in 2014 and permitted its pharmacists to opt-in to prescribe and dispense contraceptives without delay to sufferers of all a while following a statewide protocol to be subsequently developed with the aid of the California Board of Pharmacy . There have been no sources for implementation and the regulation did now not tackle fee for the pharmacist’s service. The California Board of Pharmacy began protocol development in 2014 and in 2016, the statewide protocol grew to become on hand for pharmacist use following a minimal of one hour of training, which is available from all California schools of pharmacy and multiple persevering with training providers. The protocol requires use of a affected person self-screening questionnaire to determine eligibility for the quite a number self-administered hormonal contraceptive methods—pill, transdermal patch, vaginal ring, and depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) injection. In the first year after protocol availability, 5%–11% of pharmacies had been imparting the provider .

•While there are surveys of pharmacist activity and intentions to grant this service along with their motivations and barriers, there are no qualitative records on pharmacists’ outlooks about taking part in prescribing hormonal contraception following legislative growth in their scope of practice that permits it . The goal of this study used to be to explore pharmacists’ outlooks concerning the coming near near ability to prescribe hormonal contraception in the duration after the regulation grew to be effective and prior to statewide protocol availability. Since the sizeable majority of pharmacies are now not presenting this service, this find out about will help inform ongoing implementation efforts. Similar protocols have when you consider that been implemented in quite a few other states with greater following every 12 months . There is usually a noteworthy lag time (i.e., 2.5 years in California) from law passing to law and protocol improvement and approval. For this reason, the findings of this find out about are relevant past California and can be included in policy format and implementation efforts in other states.