Pharmacists opioid risk and safety counseling practices: A latent class analysis approach

The opioid crisis is a global public health issue, especially present in the United States. Limited research addresses pharmacists' opioid medication counseling practices particularly their risk and safety counseling practices.

The objective of this paper is to categorize pharmacists based on their opioid risk and safety counseling practices to inform future interventions and research to improve practice. The percent of pharmacists falling into each of these underlying, unobservable subgroups is identified using latent class analysis.

This study was conducted as a statewide survey of pharmacists using the modified Dilman technique. The survey consisted of ten items about pharmacists' opioid risk and safety practices when dispensing an opioid medication. Descriptive statistics were conducted followed by latent class analysis. This approach categorized pharmacists based on their responses to the survey items.

Responses from 216 pharmacists were used in this study. In the three-class model which was deemed the best fit, the first class shows a profile of pharmacists who counsel on almost all opioid risk and safety topics and composed 16.75% of the total respondent population. The second class shows a profile of pharmacists who hardly counsel on any opioid risks and safety topics and comprised 39.80% of the respondent population. The third class shows a profile of pharmacists counseling on opioid risk and safety topics mostly for new or long-term prescriptions, but not for refill or short-term prescriptions. This group constituted 43.45% of the respondent population.

This study identifies distinct classes of pharmacists in terms of the frequency with which their opioid counseling does or does not include key elements of risk and safety topics. A small minority usually include the risk and safety issues. Training and resource interventions targeting pharmacists who do not counsel patients about opioid risks are important to help them become more comfortable and adept as opioid risk and safety educators.