Evidence-based self-medication: development and evaluation of a professional newsletter concept for community pharmacies

Background Providing evidence-based care is recognized as a key competence for all healthcare professionals. In order to support community pharmacists in evidence-based self-medication counseling, the umbrella organization of German pharmacists initiated the development of a nationwide concept. The key element of the concept was a professional newsletter that should help pharmacists incorporate research findings into their daily counseling practice. Objective To develop, implement and evaluate the professional newsletter concept. Setting German community pharmacies. Method Clinical pharmacists from a German university compiled and synthesized clinical trial data in a professional newsletter that would supply community pharmacists with evidence-based information on common over-the-counter medicines as well as instructions for searching and appraising scientific literature. The electronic newsletter was offered to interested community pharmacists free of charge, once or twice a month, after they signed up for a subscription. About one year after the publication of the first newsletter issue, the subscribers were invited to take part in an anonymous cross-sectional online survey. In all, 21 newsletter issues were published through the end of the survey period. Main outcome measure Perceived value of the professional newsletter with 10 predefined objectives. Results A total of 1975 persons subscribed to the professional newsletter. Of those, 150 persons working in community pharmacies completed the survey. Most of them perceived the synthesized information as ‘useful’ (81–95%). They attributed positive changes in knowledge (89%), skills (87–91%), awareness (85%), and motivation (67–77%) to the newsletter. However, almost half of them (43%) found it difficult to incorporate reading the newsletter in their everyday working life. Free-text feedback suggested that further modifications should be considered to facilitate a better integration of the newsletter into everyday pharmacy practice. Conclusion A nationwide provided professional newsletter can play a vital part in supporting pharmacists in evidence-based self-medication counseling. However, the practicability of such a newsletter needs to be further improved and the newsletter should be accompanied by additional measures. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s11096-020-01100-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.