Early recognition of coeliac disease through community pharmacies: A proof of concept study

Urwin, Heidi, Wright, David, Twigg, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0910-3850 and McGough, Norma (2016) Early recognition of coeliac disease through community pharmacies: A proof of concept study. International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, 38 (5). 1294–1300. ISSN 2210-7703

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Abstract

Setting: 15 community pharmacies in the UK. Objective: Proof of concept study to test the use of community pharmacies for active case finding of patients with coeliac disease. Method: Customers accessing over-the counter and prescription medicines indicated in the treatment of possible symptoms of coeliac disease over a six month period were offered a free point of care test. All patients were given advice regarding the test results and those who tested positive were advised to make an appointment with their general practitioner. Patients and pharmacists involved in service provision were asked to complete a satisfaction survey. Pharmacists were additionally invited to undertake interviews to better understand their views on the service. Main outcome measures: Feasibility of service, acceptability to stakeholders and proportion testing positive for coeliac disease. Results: Of the 551 individuals tested, 52 (9.4%) tested positive. 277 (50.3%) were tested for accessing irritable bowel syndrome treatment, 142 (25.8%) due to presenting for diarrhoea. The proportion of patients testing positive with different symptoms or for different treatments were similar. Of 43 customers who returned the satisfaction survey, all would recommend the service to others, believing the community pharmacy to be a suitable location. Community pharmacists believed that it enabled them to improve relationships with their customers and that medical practices were receptive to the service. Conclusion: This proof of concept study has shown that community pharmacies using a point of care test can effectively recognise and refer patients for confirmatory coeliac disease testing with high levels of customer and service provider satisfaction.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2016 Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	coeliac disease,screening,community pharmacy,point of care testing,case finding,sdg 3 - good health and well-being ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/good_health_and_well_being
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Pharmacy
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Patient Care
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Sep 2016 00:10
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2022 01:22
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/59889
DOI:	10.1007/s11096-016-0368-4

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