Importance of pharmacist-patient relationship in people living with HIV and concomitant opioid use disorder

BACKGROUND: PLWHA commonly suffer from chronic pain that is often treated with opioids, leading to subsequent opiate use disorders. As the majority of Americans live in close proximity to a pharmacy, community pharmacists are well equipped to interact with PLWHA. Few data quantify the needs of PLWHA with OUD, or how they utilize community pharmacists. OBJECTIVES: To characterize the perceptions of Persons Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and using opioid medications on the interaction with pharmacists. METHODS: For this study, a qualitative approach was used. A key purpose of interviews is to encourage and inspire the subject to share a significant event of his/her life with the interviewer. Recruitment for face-to-face interviews with PLWHA continued until saturation was achieved. The Theory of Planned Behavior was used to assess the findings from this study. Sixteen interviews were transcribed verbatim and content analysis was performed by two researchers using Dedoose®, a qualitative software. Codes were grouped based on similarities into categories that facilitated the emergence of themes. RESULTS: Content analysis revealed two major themes. The first theme presents the subjects' beliefs and opinions about pharmacists' interactions when picking up their opioid prescriptions. Several subjects described encounters with the pharmacists that facilitated a trustful relationship. In the second theme, the analysis showed that the relationship with community pharmacists could be improved by having a more in-depth counseling about opioid medication and abuse. CONCLUSIONS: These data highlight how PLWHA would like to interact with pharmacists when picking up opioid prescriptions. These results depicted how some subjects are using the pharmacists as a vital resource for medication information. These findings also demonstrated how for some subjects a more detailed counseling session when they receive opioid medications could be crucial in changing their behavior. Thus, community pharmacists are well positioned to reduce the usage of opioid medications and change PLWHA behavior and attitudes toward opioid prescriptions.