Pharmaceutical care services provided by pharmacists during COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives from around the World

Abstract

Objectives: Pharmacists have proven to be an indispensable member of the frontline healthcare team during this COVID-19 pandemic and have performed key roles and responsibilities to mitigate its adverse impact. They are facing several unusual challenges in these changing and evolving circumstances and are adopting novel strategies to overcome them. This review aims to identify and describe the different pharmaceutical care services delivered by pharmacists during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A review of different studies was conducted to appraise the existing literature regarding various pharmaceutical care services carried out by the pharmacist during the COVID-19 pandemic. The review was done using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA). A comprehensive literature search was done using different databases such as MEDLINE, PubMed, Embase and ProQuest to identify the relevant studies. Key findings: The review highlights the various pharmaceutical care services provided and implemented by pharmacists during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pharmaceutical care services like patient education and counselling, providing information, addressing medication shortages, teleconsultation, medication review, optimizing medication regimen, adverse drug reaction monitoring and addressing the medication-related problems are being delivered by the pharmacists in this ongoing pandemic. Conclusions: All the studies described the roles and responsibilities of the pharmacists during COVID-19. This pandemic adversity has opened up new avenues for the pharmacists which have broadened their scope as the member of multidisciplinary healthcare team. Pharmacists have to overcome the unforeseen barriers and challenges and continue providing need-based pharmaceutical care services.