BackgroundGood patient-pharmacist communication improves health outcomes. There is, however, room for improving pharmacists’ communication skills. These develop through complex interactions during undergraduate pharmacy education, practice-based learning and continuing professional development. Research is needed to determine how best to approach teaching patient-pharmacist communication.MethodsThe aim of the research is to understand how educational interventions develop patient-pharmacist interpersonal communication skills produce their effects. A realist review approach will be used to synthesise the literature to make sense of the complexities of educational interventions. Our review will iteratively progress through the various stages of clarifying scope, locating existing theories, searching for evidence, appraisal of papers, data extraction and synthesis. A scoping review revealed a number of substantive theories, which will be used to build an initial programme theory. This will be explored through available published evidence, which we will find by searching databases such as Medline, EMBASE, PsychInfo, ERIC, Scopus and Web of Science. Judgements will be made on the relevance and rigour of the retrieved literature and will be taken into consideration during analysis and synthesis. Synthesis, testing and refinement of the theories will describe and explain the links between contexts, mechanisms and outcomes of educational interventions for communication development in pharmacy.DiscussionThe realist review will provide an analysis of what works when, for whom, how and why, for educational interventions for interpersonal patient-pharmacist communication development. We will also explore barriers to successful communications training and acknowledge any limitations. Ultimately, we plan to provide pharmacy educators with evidence for how best to incorporate educational interventions for communications skills development into pharmacy curricula and for life-long learning opportunities for pharmacists.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13643-016-0396-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
This paper describes the findings from the first stage of a study designed to assess the impact of sexual violence (SV) on the lives of Irish women. Stakeholder interviews (n = 18) were undertaken to explore experiences of delivering services to people who have experienced SV, in rural and urban settings in Ireland. A range of themes and sub-themes were identified through a thematic analysis, and interrelationships between two of the main themes (barriers to services and current gaps in service provision) are discussed. Sub-themes include: survivor guilt and shame, difficulties in naming the incident as SV, problems with the Criminal Justice System and the availability of Sexual Assault Treatment Units. Participants identified an urgent need for a co-ordinated national strategy in the form of a public awareness and education campaign in order to undermine commonly held rape myths and stereotypes. The findings will be of interest to all health and social care professionals who are in contact with women who have experienced SV. They will also help to raise an awareness of the 'hidden' costs of SV, and inform appropriate policies and community-based responses to this important social problem.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.