Q&A: Pharmacists Can Help Fill Reproductive Health Care Gap
Natalie DiPietro Mager, PharmD, PhD, discusses the role that community pharmacists can play in improving access to contraceptive services.
Due to a variety of barriers in the United States—including restrictions on reproductive rights, difficultly finding clinics that offer reproductive health care services, and logistical constraints—access to reproductive health care has declined over the past several years.1 However, as the most accessible members of health care teams, pharmacists are well positioned to help fill the reproductive health care gap.
Q&A: Pharmacists Can Help Fill Reproductive Health Care Gap / peopleimages - stock.adobe.com
In a discussion with Drug Topics, Natalie DiPietro Mager, PharmD, PhD, professor of pharmacy practice at Ohio Northern University, discussed the role that community pharmacists can play in improving access to contraceptive services and the importance of listening to pregnant and postpartum patients.
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Drug Topics: What role do you think community pharmacists can play in improving access to contraceptive services?
Natalie DiPietro Mager, PharmD, PhD: Well, I think there's 2 main areas where pharmacists can play a role. First is in actually providing the product. With the release of Opill in the last year and emergency contraception being available in pharmacies, pharmacies are important access points for over the counter contraception, and of course for prescription contraception products. Dispensing should not be overlooked. It's incredibly important that pharmacists and pharmacies are in the local community to dispense these products. As we're seeing different pharmacies close across the country, it's becoming potentially difficult for patients to get the contraception they need. So dispensing is key. But also in some states, pharmacists are now able to prescribe or dispense without a prescription different hormonal contraceptive products or emergency contraception. Sometimes they can administer certain contraceptive products.
So, there's the piece for pharmacy of making sure people have access to the products. But I also want to highlight an overlooked area, which is the education and the counseling that pharmacists can be providing. We do see in our country higher rates of unintended pregnancy, and among patients who report unintended pregnancy, nearly half report using a contraceptive product in the month prior to conception. Either that means it's been used incorrectly or inconsistently, or patients may be discontinuing their contraception due to side effects. That's where pharmacists can really step in. We can make sure that patients know how to use their contraception correctly and consistently each time. We can educate patients about what sort of side effects that they could expect and how to mitigate those. If they do feel like they want to switch methods, how to do so effectively, so that they don't have any gaps in contraceptive coverage when they're switching methods. We can talk to them about backup methods and when may they be needed, potential drug-drug interactions, and what to do if they miss a dose.
There's a lot of rules for pharmacists, and we need to really think about it through a lens of health literacy, making sure that we're speaking to our patients in ways that they can understand and where they can go to find information, because it's unlikely that they may remember all of the counseling we give them, especially about what to do if they miss a dose. Where is a reputable place that they can go to get this information? When we see so much misinformation currently online, especially around topics like contraception, it's important that we help our patients be able to ascertain what are some places that they can go to get reliable information about contraception. That's going to be important when they don't have access to talk to us, but they're trying to seek out this information on their own.
Drug Topics: Is there anything else you wanted to say?
DiPietro Mager: One other thing that I will mention, it's a campaign that's been started by the CDC, and it's called the HEAR HER campaign, and it's a campaign targeted to different members of society. There's also a dimension of it that is targeted to health care professionals. Basically, with the HEAR HER campaign, it is to raise awareness among health care professionals to listen to our patients, especially patients who are pregnant or postpartum, if they come to us with health concerns like headache, dizziness, excessive bleeding. Instead of maybe discounting or dismissing them, really listening to them. Take that blood pressure check, see what's going on with that patient, and triage them as appropriate. I think that's another important aspect, that intentional listening to our patients, being there for them, and being their advocate. If they do come to us expressing any concerns that we take them seriously and try to get them the care that they need.
READ MORE: Women's Health Resource Center
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