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Abstract
Background: Australian general practitioners primarily treat mental health problems by prescribing medication dispensed by community pharmacists. Pharmacists therefore have regular interactions with mental health consumers and carers.
Aims: This narrative review explored the potential role of community pharmacy in mental health services.
Method: Medline, CINAHL, ProQuest, Emerald, PsycINFO, Science Direct, PubMed, Web of Knowledge and IPA were utilised. The Cochrane Library as well as grey literature and “lay” search engines such as GoogleScholar were also searched.
Results: Four systematic reviews and ten community pharmacy randomised controlled trials were identified. Various relevant reviews outlining the impact of community pharmacy based disease state or medicines management services were also identified.
Conclusion: International studies involving professional service interventions for mental health consumers could be contextualised for the Australian setting. Australian studies of pharmacy professional services for chronic physical health conditions provided further guidance for the expansion of community pharmacy mental health professional services.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge all the members of the project team Bradley McConachie, Fiona Kelly, Andrew Davey, Amary Mey, Kathy Knox, Jasmina Fejzic and Rhonda Knights.
Declaration of interest
This study was funded by the Australian Government Department of Health as part of the Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement Research and Development Programme managed by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia. The financial assistance provided must not be taken as endorsement of the contents of this report.
Notes
* This work was carried out at Griffith University, Brisbane 4131, Australia.