A call for action: Educating pharmacists and pharmacy students in behaviour change techniques

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Behavioral Science
• Pharmacy Practice

Background:

• Chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease significantly impact mortality, necessitating enhanced health professional skills in behavior change.
• Traditional patient education is often insufficient for sustained behavior change, highlighting the need for more tailored interventions.
• Increased inaccessibility to primary care providers makes pharmacists vital for opportunistic health behavior change interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe and recommend upskilling strategies for pharmacists and pharmacy students in opportunistic health behavior change.
• To identify key evidence-based behavior change techniques relevant to community pharmacy practice.

Main Methods:

• Review and outline nine core evidence-based behavior change techniques.
• Discuss the application of these techniques in common pharmacy encounters.
• Provide recommendations for teaching and implementing these skills.

Main Results:

• Identified nine key behavior change techniques: social support, problem solving, anticipated regret, habit formation, behavior substitution, environmental restructuring, social approval, pros and cons analysis, and feedback.
• These techniques are applicable to medication adherence and health promotion.
• Recommendations are provided for integrating these skills into pharmacy education and practice.

Conclusions:

• Pharmacists are well-positioned to deliver opportunistic behavior change interventions due to frequent patient contact.
• Upskilling pharmacists in specific behavior change techniques can improve patient outcomes and reduce the burden of chronic disease.
• Integrating these skills into pharmacy curricula and practice is essential for maximizing pharmacists' role in public health.