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Review
. 2015 Sep 30:3:2050312115603002.
doi: 10.1177/2050312115603002. eCollection 2015.

Mapping the terrain: A conceptual schema for a mental health medication support service in community pharmacy

Shane Scahill  1 , Jane L Fowler  2 , H Laetitia Hattingh  3 , Fiona Kelly  4 , Amanda J Wheeler  5
Affiliations
Review

Mapping the terrain: A conceptual schema for a mental health medication support service in community pharmacy

Shane Scahill et al. SAGE Open Med. .

Abstract

Objective: Mental health-related problems pose a serious issue for primary care, and community pharmacy could make a significant contribution, but there is a dearth of information.

Methods: This article reports synthesis of the literature on mental health interventions across a range of pharmacy models, and pharmacy services in contexts beyond mental health. To best inform the design of a community pharmacy medication support intervention for mental health consumers, the literature was reported as a conceptual schema and subsequent recommendations for development, implementation and evaluation of the service. A broad conceptualisation was taken in this review. In addition to mental health and community pharmacy literature, policy/initiatives, organisational culture and change management principles, and evaluative processes were reviewed. Key words were selected and literature reviews undertaken using EMBASE, PubMed, CINAHL and Web of Science.

Results: Recommendations were made around: medication support intervention design, consumer recruitment, implementation in community pharmacy and evaluation. Surprisingly, there is a scarce literature relating to mental health interventions in community pharmacy. Even so, findings from other pharmacy models and broader medicines management for chronic illness can inform development of a medication support service for mental health consumers. Key learnings include the need to expand medicines management beyond adherence with respect to both intervention design and evaluation.

Conclusion: The conceptual framework is grounded in the need for programmes to be embedded within pharmacies that are part of the health system as a whole.

Keywords: Community pharmacy; conceptual schema; mental health.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Conceptual schema.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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