Stigma Research Project Submitted for Publication

By Charles Caley, PharmD, BCPP

At the CPNP Annual meeting in Phoenix, the results of the CPNP Foundation stigma survey were presented by Dr. Vince Giannetti and Dr. Khalid Kamal. This stigma research project involved developing an original, 101-item survey for community pharmacists which focused on their provision of pharmacy services and their comparative opinions about working with patients who have mental illness.

The comparative opinions section of the survey measured pharmacists' attitudes, perceptions and beliefs about patients diagnosed with a mental illness. Information about pharmacist demographics, knowledge and practice characteristics were also collected. A brief summary of the findings are provided below:

• Pharmacists report overall willingness and interest to provide services for patients with mental illness, but comparatively lower comfort and confidence in their abilities.
• Survey respondents with personal experience with mental illness was associated with higher scores across all four domains of service provision, lower levels of stigma and more positive attitudes.
• Pharmacists rated confidence and comfort as being low when needing to ask patients about their therapeutic goals, as well as when speaking with physician's about the patient's medication. Of interest is the key finding from the 2012 CPNPF/NAMI survey was that identified 75% of NAMI member respondents (n = 1,031) reporting that they did not receive medication effectiveness monitoring assistance from their community pharmacist.
• This study identified prevalent stigma among the surveyed sample of community pharmacists. These results are consistent with the findings of previous researchers. Thus, an opportunity exists to reduce the level of stigma in community pharmacy.

Two separate manuscripts have been prepared to describe the results of this survey, the first manuscript presents the survey data and the second manuscript analyzes the survey data to determine relationships between service provision and comparative opinoins regarding mental illness. These manuscripts will be submitted to Psychiatric Services for review.

Members of the CPNP Foundation who participated in this project include: Barbara Wells, Dean Najarian, Jerry McKee. Collaborators from Duquesne University include: Vince Gianetti, Khalid Kamal, Jordan Covvey, Tyler Dunn, and Pratyusha Vadagam.