A Twitter analysis of World Pharmacists Day 2020 images: Sending the wrong messages

Abstract

Background: Pharmacists are often depicted as dispensers of medication as opposed to health professionals who provide patient care. Our objective was to identify how pharmacists’ roles were portrayed in images on Twitter for World Pharmacists Day (WPD) 2020. Methods: A qualitative content analysis was undertaken to evaluate the images of pharmacists on WPD. Tweets were included that had a photo or image, used 1 of 5 WPD hashtags and were posted between September 24 and 26, 2020. Thematic analysis was performed independently by 2 investigators. Tweets were categorized into 5 groups: 1) drug distribution roles, 2) patient care roles, 3) no described roles, 4) not professional/unprofessional roles and 5) not relevant. Subgroup analysis was performed for the users who posted the tweets. Results: Of the 970 tweets analyzed, only 11% of the overall tweets portrayed the patient care roles of pharmacists, whereas 51% portrayed drug distribution roles and 29% did not describe any particular roles of pharmacists. These proportions were similar between subgroups of tweeters. Discussion: WPD is intended to promote and advocate for the pharmacy profession. The results of our study show poor messaging of pharmacists’ roles and reflect a missed opportunity to showcase the full scope of pharmacy practice. Conclusion: Based on the images tweeted on WPD 2020, the diversity of pharmacists’ practice as skilled health care practitioners was lost in a sea of tweets portraying pharmacists’ roles in drug distribution. We hope that pharmacists and pharmacy organizations will awaken to this self-induced problem for WPD 2021. Can Pharm J (Ott) 2021;154(5):xx-xx.

Pharmacy Students’ Perceptions of the Pharmacist Role: An Arts-Informed Approach to Professional Identity Formation

“…Participants' drawings prominently featured symbols of medication, which is consistent with previous research that highlighted the dispensing aspect of pharmacists' identities [46,63]. However, unlike in previous research, the medication symbols in the drawings in our study were associated with the health care provider aspect of identity.…”

Public's Perception of Pharmacist

“…Elvey et al suggested the existence of a tug-of-war within pharmacists, who were fighting their desire to be recognized as clinical practitioners and their devotion to their traditional identity as medicine makers. 12 This realization supports Potter's 13 observation: "An odd thing happened to the pharmacy profession while all of the pharmacists watched. Someone forgot to ask working community/chain and hospital staff pharmacists what direction the profession should take."…”

“…Many other studies have provided important insights. For example, Santarossa et al 12 studied tweets sent on World Pharmacist Day (WPD) 2020 and found that pharmacists' healthcare practices were lost in a sea of tweets portraying their role in drug distribution, noting no improvement in this one-sided image since the initiation of WPD by the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) in 2010. Elvey et al suggested the existence of a tug-of-war within pharmacists, who were fighting their desire to be recognized as clinical practitioners and their devotion to their traditional identity as medicine makers.…”

Borrowed Credentials and Surrogate Professional Societies: A Critical Analysis of the Urban Forestry Profession

“…Pharmacists are currently engaged in yet another period of adjustment and are undergoing extensive self-reflection of their profession and role in society (Gregory and Austin 2019;Edwards 2020;Kellar et al 2020;Nelson et al 2021;Santarossa et al 2021).…”

“…This was exemplified by a reported problem with awareness and public image of the term "forestry"; the public and potential students unfortunately perceived foresters as "timber beasts" rather than "sustainability-oriented problem solvers." Bullard (2015) offered specific, large-scale recommendations to permanently resolve the problem, including major revisions to accreditation standards representing a paradigm shift toward embracing O'Herrin et al: A Critical Analysis of the Urban Forestry Profession They struggle with the public perception that they simply dispense medication and do not provide direct patient care and lament a lack of awareness of their importance as health care professionals (Santarossa et al 2021). They also strive to be seen as important as medical doctors and express frustration over being labeled as only "mid-level" providers by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (Moore et al 2022).…”