Thing

How useful are medicines helplines for patients discharged from hospital?

This paper suggests that patient helplines support medicines optimisation by ensuring patients have easy access to pharmacy experts to discuss concerns about their medicines and improve the quality of their pharmaceutical care.…

The package user test: a method for improving medicines packaging

This paper describes a new performance-based package user test that has the potential to improve drug package design and therefore reduce drug selection errors.…

Use every opportunity you have to make a difference

Pharmacist Monica Sudra speaks to Jeff Mills about her early career in pharmacovigilance and collaborating with the RPS…

We are all part virus — the role of human endogenous retroviruses

Viruses lurk in our genome and science is only now starting to understand the important role that they might play in health and disease. Kalliopi Dodou and Paul Whiteley explain.…

After 30 years, clozapine is still best for treatment-resistant patients

There is still “fear” among some clinicians about prescribing clozapine for patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Jenny Bryan takes a look at the drug’s history…

How treatment is labelled affects migraine pain scores, study finds

Giving patients positive information about their treatment for acute migraine contributes to a successful outcome, whether the patient is given active drug or placebo, a US study has shown ( Science Translational Medicine ; 8 January 2013).…

SSRI use in late pregnancy linked to newborn pulmonary hypertension

Infants whose mothers took selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in late pregnancy may be at increased risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn…

Can supervision relaxation undermine patient safety in community pharmacy?

Supervision relaxation is on the cards again. Ellen Schafheutle and colleagues describe a study that explored communty and hospital pharmacyprofessionals’ views of the issues…

Vitamin D status of pregnant women linked to muscle strength of offspring

A woman’s vitamin D status during pregnancy could be positively associated with the muscle strength of her offspring, according to a study by Southampton researchers published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (2014;99:330).…

Nelson Mandela — healing a nation

Sybil Seoka, immediate past president of the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa, writes in memory of elder statesman Nelson Mandela, who died on 5 December 2013…