Research lines

The research of the Pharmaceutical Care Unit is organised in 4 lines of research focussing on the appropriate use of medicines:

  1. Patients with chronic conditions
  2. Self-treatment with OTC-medication
  3. Specific patient populations
  4. Pharmacoepidemiology

1. Patients with chronic conditions

This line of research consists of clinical studies carried out in the community pharmacy with respect to the role of the pharmacist in the treatment of chronic conditions. These studies are always oriented towards one specific affliction (e.g. asthma, COPD, diabetes) and can be observational or interventional. The observational studies have the aim of charting the present treatment of a particular pathology and to identify the obstacles. Afterwards recommendations are formulated to improve the pharmaceutical care. The effectiveness of this pharmaceutical care intervention is then evaluated by a randomised, controlled trial. In this way the content of pharmaceutical care for a particular affliction can be elaborated in a rational way.

Below you can find some studies already carried out and the corresponding publications:

Appropriate use of Direct Oral Anticoagulants

Correct use of eye drops

2. Self-treatment with OTC-medication

Self-medication of pain

Self-medication of rhinitis

3. Specific patient populations

Older patients

Many older patients take multiple medicines at the same time. This polypharmacy can, however, cause problems, which may lead to hospitalisation. Several international studies showed that 5 to 20% of hospitalisations are drug-related, and about half of these are considered preventable.

Prevention and early detection of drug-related problems in older patients is of increasing importance. Community pharmacists may be ideally placed to engage in this process because of their medication-specific knowledge and because of the availability of an electronic dispensing record in the pharmacy. However, this engagement would require an evidence-based and feasible screening tool specifically suitable for use in the typical community pharmacy practice (ie, no access to patients' clinical data). Such a tool, to the best of our knowledge, has not yet been developed. Therefore, a multidisciplinary team of Ghent University has developed the GheOP³S-tool: the Ghent Older People’s Prescriptions community Pharmacy Screening tool.

More information on the GheOP3S tool.

4. Pharmacoepidemiology

This research line combines clinical pharmacology with epidemiology to promote rational drug use in the society. The impact of drugs on public health is evaluated in terms of use, (cost)effectiveness and safety. Focused areas are therapy adherence, personalized medicine, and multimorbidity. Evidence therefrom supports the quality of pharmaceutical care.

Below you can find some examples of studies within this research line:

Personalized medicine:

Side effects:

Adherence:

Multimorbidity: