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Objective To assess the perception of Maltese consumers regarding extended professional services for community pharmacists. Methods The self‐administered questionnaire developed by Wirth et al. was formulated into a concise questionnaire consisting of seven Likert scale statements focusing on extended professional services for community pharmacists including; longer pharmacy opening hours, pharmacist accessibility outside pharmacy opening hours, availability of a private consultation area, provision of diagnostic testing, keeping patient medication records, pharmacist–physician collaboration to manage chronic conditions and pharmacist prescribing. The questionnaire was distributed to 824 consumers recruited by random sampling during educational activities organised to promote the role of the community pharmacist in five localities in Malta. The importance given to each statement by the consumers was analysed. Key findings The consumers perceived pharmacist–physician collaboration in the management of chronic conditions (93%) and provision of diagnostic testing (92%) to be the most important extended professional services. Pharmacist prescribing (69%) and pharmacist accessibility outside pharmacy opening hours (68%) were perceived to be the least important. The percentage of consumers who perceived having a private consultation area in the pharmacy, keeping medication records and longer pharmacy opening hours as important was 87%, 83% and 81% respectively. Conclusions Maltese consumers perceive community pharmacist extended professional services as important, particularly pharmacist–physician collaboration in the management of chronic conditions and provision of diagnostic testing.

During the synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) there is a need for the development and validation of a simple and rapid high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the determination and quantification of the synthesized product and related by-products. An HPLC method gives a better understanding of how a synthesis is proceeding. A rapid and easy to use HPLC-UV (ultraviolet) method for the determination of difluprednate and monitoring of impurities generated during synthesis was developed and validated. A Shimadzu VP Series HPLC equipped with a LabSolutions software and UV detector set at 240 nm was used for analysis. The mobile phase consisted of phosphate buffer (pH 6) and acetonitrile 50:50 (v/v) and was eluted at a flow rate of 1.2 mL/min. Separation took place on a reversed-phase Kinetex C18 column (150 × 4.60 mm; 5 μm i.d.). Column temperature was set at 40°C. The developed method was found to have good linearity and acceptable accuracy and precision. The developed method may be effectively applied to determine products and by-products formed during synthetic reactions of steroids and to calculate the yield of the products obtained during each step of the synthesis.

Amitriptyline (AMI) has been in use for decades in treating depression and more recently for the management of neuropathic pain. A highly sensitive and specific LC-tandem mass spectrometry method was developed for simultaneous determination of AMI, its active metabolite nortriptyline (NOR) and their hydroxy-metabolites in human serum, using deuterated AMI and NOR as internal standards. The isobaric E-10-hydroxyamitriptyline (E-OH AMI), Z-10-hydroxyamitriptyline (Z-OH AMI), E-10-hydroxynortriptyline (E-OH NOR) and Z-10-hydroxynortriptyline (Z-OH NOR), together with their parent compounds, were separated on an ACE C 18 column using a simple protein precipitation method, followed by dilution and analysis using positive electrospray ionisation with multiple reaction monitoring. The total run time was 6 min with elution of E-OH AMI, E-OH NOR, Z-OH AMI, Z-OH NOR, AMI (+ deuterated AMI) and NOR (+ deuterated NOR) at 1.21, 1.28, 1.66, 1.71, 2.50 and 2.59 min, respectively. The method was validated in human serum with a lower limit of quantitation of 0.5 ng/mL for all analytes. A linear response function was established for the range of concentrations 0.5-400 ng/mL (r 2 > .999). The practical assay was applied on samples from patients on AMI, genotyped for CYP2C19 and CYP2D6, to understand the influence of metaboliser status and concomitant medication on therapeutic drug monitoring.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which was globally declared during the first quarter of the year 2020, led to the transition of teaching activities from the traditional classroom setting to online platforms. This study evaluated preparedness and perception towards online learning and its impact among pharmacy academics and students by using two self-administered questionnaires. Fifteen academics and 60 students answered the questionnaire. Participants had the required technology for online learning (academics n=14, 93%; students n=56, 93%) and believed that the transition to online learning was easy (academics n=12, 80%; students n=41, 68%). Most participants (academics n=12, 80%; students n=46, 77%) stated that online learning allowed more flexibility even though they preferred classroom-based approach. A minority of students stated that the shift to online learning during the pandemic made them feel alone (n=11, 18%), anxious (n=7, 12%) and depressed (n=9, 15%). Given the option, participants would prefer a hybrid learning approach, whereby some teaching activities are switched to online platforms.