Case study: Joint pain and the role of community pharmacy
Challenge
The convenience that community pharmacies provide the patients they serve means individuals can present and receive the necessary care for their conditions and ailments, seek advice and purchase a product that may provide some relief or support.
One in five adults experience problems with their joints from the age of 45 years and much can be done to improve their quality of life. While we are aware that people may ask their pharmacist about joint pain, we knew little about the frequency of such complaints or how knowledgeable pharmacists are in providing quality care, since they receive little formal training on the condition.
The Pharmaceutical Journal and GSK partnered to devise an independent editorial campaign to identify and meet the learning needs of pharmacy team members within a community pharmacy setting to ultimately help improve patients’ quality of life. More information on the background to the campaign can be found here.
Utilising our extensive experience of commercial publishing across pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences, we adapted our existing insight-led approach to develop a campaign to meet this challenge.
Discovery
As a first step, The Pharmaceutical Journal surveyed members of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to identify the scale of the issue and determine baseline knowledge and understanding.
Top line results
40–50% of pharmacists (n=699) reported interacting with up to five patients per week with joint pain or stiffness, and 10% of respondents said they manage more than 15 such patients each week.
51% of respondents (n=167) were unaware that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends topical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs as part of first-line treatment for osteoarthritis, the most common cause of mechanical joint pain and/or stiffness.
Designing a solution
The Pharmaceutical Journal hosted a roundtable event that brought together relevant experts on musculoskeletal disorders, including rheumatologists, GPs, pharmacists, physiotherapists, a dietitian and a patient advocacy group representative, to determine the best way for pharmacists and their teams to provide support to patients while developing links with other healthcare professionals.
Source: MAG / The Pharmaceutical Journal
A clear consensus emerged — pharmacists are ideally placed to support patients with joint pain without the need for a clinical diagnosis, after ruling out a more serious underlying condition (see learning article ‘How to conduct an effective joint pain management consultation in community pharmacy’).
We also produced a first-of-its-kind patient pathway that outlines how pharmacy teams should support patients in line with clinical guidance (see learning article ‘Appropriate community pharmacy management and referral of patients with chronic peripheral joint pain’).
Delivering impact
The content was well-received and generated:
- 12,000 total page views in the first year;
- Over 4,000 total page views for the learning articles alone;
- Over 5,000 engagements with content posts on Facebook and Twitter.
Feedback
“The supplement looks great, reads really well and because written in a different way to what I am used to, I have learnt a lot. I have also changed my own way of practising –I now always refer patients to community pharmacy for the treatment and management of minor ailments”
– Alastair Dickson, GP and communications officer for Primary Care Rheumatology
“The articles are very strong. The article on treatments and improving movement is an excellent article. In my conversations with pharmacy, pharmacists seem to be aware of this work and the campaign, with information from the campaign disseminated to a variety of locations”
– Chris Hayes, Extended Scope Physiotherapist
“Really good plan for management, including theory in the pathway, but there are difficulties in implementing recommendations (e.g. somewhat unrealistic) because of time pressures and cohort of patients being seen”
– Community pharmacist