Overcoming barriers
Overcoming barriers
A recent study of the barriers and facilitators to primary care staff being involved in research, found the main barrier to be staff perception that they were unable to fit anything else into an already packed workload. The main facilitator was clear anticipated patient benefit from the research.
Research teams are usually very willing and happy to discuss practical details with potential participant study sites such as community pharmacies. Email or phone the contact person from the participant information leaflet. Tell them you are considering taking part and ask them to talk you through how they support new participant pharmacies. Ask about a realistic timeline for the study, and what monies will be paid for participation, as well as any other questions you have.
Reflective
Imagine that you and your team have been asked to be a study site for a multi-site research project. It already has full ethical approval and will involve observing the pharmacy team and their interactions with members of the public who ask about healthy living topics.
- What are the four main things that will contribute to your decision about whether or not to take part?
Conclusions
High quality pharmacy practice research is critical for generating evidence to underpin several aspects of practice, including effective interventions, service commissioning and adequate workforce planning and development.
Community pharmacy technicians and other team members can contribute in several ways, ranging from data collection, being research participants, recruiting patients or members of the public to studies and designing their own studies. Schools of pharmacy are a key resource and community pharmacy technicians can engage with researchers in a shared field of interest and obtain research supervision to work towards MSc and PhD projects.
Useful resources
Research training
- National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR): nihr.ac.uk
- Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) Learn, a research learning programme for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians: rpharms.com/learn
- Watson Research & Training: watsonresearchandtraining.co.uk/schedule
Peer reviewed journals
- International Journal of Pharmacy Practice: academic.oup.com/ijpp
- Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy: sciencedirect.com/journal/research-in-social-and-administrative-pharmacy
Research funders
- Pharmacy Research UK: pharmacyresearchuk.org
- NIHR: nihr.ac.uk
Pharmacy research networks
- South West Pharmacy Research Network: bath.ac.uk/projects/south-west-pharmacy-research-network
- Pharmacy Research Professionals incubator: pharmacyresearchprofessionals.org.uk