Objective. To improve pharmacy and nursing students' competency in collaborative practice by having them participate in an interprofessional diabetes experience involving social networking.Design. An existing elective course on diabetes management was modified to include interprofessional content based on Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competency domains. Web-based collaborative tools (social networking and video chat) were used to allow nursing and pharmacy students located on 2 different campuses to apply diabetes management content as an interprofessional team. Assessment. Mixed-method analyses demonstrated an increase in students' knowledge of the roles and responsibilities of the other profession and developed an understanding of interprofessional communication strategies and their central role in effective teamwork. Conclusion. Interprofessional content and activities can be effectively integrated into an existing course and offered successfully to students from other professional programs and on remote campuses.

Objectives: To evaluate student perspectives of a clinical controversy debate activity designed to improve their skills to effectively approach and communicate complex therapeutic dilemmas. Design: A clinical controversy debate activity was implemented in the fall semester of the third year pharmaceutical care laboratory curriculum. Topics were chosen based on controversies encountered in practice. Students were assigned to groups of 5-6 and subdivided to the pro or con of the topic. Each debate lasted 25 minutes. Students completed a self-assessment asking them to rate eight skills (e.g. selecting appropriate references, analysis of literature, defending and predicting arguments, composing and delivering the presentation, and persuading the audience) before and after the debate as: novice, developing, skilled, facilitating/leading, or educating. Results were analyzed descriptively and the pre-post ratings were compared using a Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. Results: 140 (84.8%) students responded to the self-assessment survey. The skill that students rated most highly prior to the debate was selecting appropriate resources and primary literature, with only 7.1% rating themselves as novice. After completing the debate, the skill rated with the greatest improvement was predicting opposing arguments with 47.1% rating as developing and 40% rating as skilled. All eight skills had statistically significant improvements pre- and post- assignment (p < 0.001). Implications: Preparing arguments for and against treatment options is an important clinical skill, used regularly by pharmacists. A clinical controversy debate activity resulted in reports of improvement on eight measures of evidence based medicine-related skills.   Type: Case Study

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BackgroundDepression is a psychiatric condition that affects approximately one in five U.S. adults in their lifetime. No study that we know of has examined depressive symptoms and health service deficits in rural compared with non-rural populations. Four factors constitute the variable health service deficits: did not have health insurance, did not have a healthcare provider, deferred medical care because of cost and did not have a routine medical exam, all within the last 12 months. The aim of this study was to ascertain the prevalence of health service deficits in rural versus non-rural adults with depressive symptoms. Examining depressive symptoms by health service deficits is important because it allows us to approximate those with the condition who might not be receiving care for it. By analyzing national, population-based data, this study sought to fill in some important epidemiological gaps regarding depressive symptoms and health service deficits.MethodsFor this analysis the population of interest was U.S. adults identified as currently having depressive symptoms using the PHQ-8 criteria. Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance Survey 2006 data were used in this analysis. Health service deficits was the primary dependent variable. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to examine health service deficits experienced by adults with depression controlling for socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity and geographic locale (rural or non-rural).ResultsLogistic regression analysis yielded that U.S. adults currently having depressive symptoms who were of low socioeconomic status, Hispanic ethnicity, or living in a rural locale were more likely to have at least one health service deficit.ConclusionAnalyzing data collected by a large surveillance system such as BRFSS, allows for an analysis incorporating an array of covariates not available from clinically-based data such as electronic health records. By identifying clinically depressed U.S. adults who also have at least one health service deficit, we were able to ascertain those most likely not receiving care for this debilitating condition. We believe community pharmacists are well suited to assist in connecting depressed, vulnerable populations with appropriate and needed care. This care would be best provided by an inter-professional team led by a primary care provider.