Each year, the CPNP Foundation supports the Defining the Future grant program which is designed to further the mission and vision of the CPNP Foundation. All three of the 2017 grant recipients had their poster abstracts accepted and were award finalists at the 2018 CPNP Annual Meeting. We followed up with the 2017 recipients to learn more about their experience and how the Defining the Future grant impacted their projects. Click on the title of each project to view the final poster!
Amanda Colistro*, PharmD Student, Midwestern University: Safe Opioid Prescribing Course Effect on Opioid Overdose Knowledge and Attitude Scales Across Multidisciplinary Students
Our goal was to assess the change in multidisciplinary healthcare student knowledge, attitude, and perceptions related to the opioid epidemic at two academic institutions using the following validated scales: Opioid Overdose Knowledge Scale (OOKS), Opioid Overdose Attitudes Scale (OOAS) and Drugs and Drug Problems Perceptions Questionnaire (DDPPQ). Thanks to the CPNP Foundation, my colleague Morgan Karrels and I were able to conduct our study to first-year students across 6 colleges at two campuses through Midwestern University. Per our results, we concluded that multidisciplinary healthcare students displayed enhanced knowledge of the opioid epidemic and positively influenced attitudes and perceptions related to patients with opioid use disorder. We believe it is important to incorporate education on the opioid epidemic, opioid overdose & naloxone use into the curriculum of all healthcare professionals to advance our practices and aid in combatting the opioid epidemic.
The Defining the Future Grant and the Strategic Goals Award provided us the opportunity to attend the CPNP 2018 meeting to present our results and reduce the stigma surrounding substance abuse disorders. We took part at the meeting as PS1 students. At the meeting, we had the opportunity to attend several programming events, such as the Mental Health First Aid Certification and the student programming events. We were also able to build invaluable relationships with other members, thereby gaining networking experience. We greatly appreciate the opportunities presented to us and our project courtesy of the CPNP Foundation and would recommend this experience to any student that has an interest in psychiatric pharmacy.
*2018 CPNP Foundation Strategic Goals Award winner. Amanda's co-investigator, Morgan Karrels (pictured), presented the Award Platform Presentation and accepted the award on behalf of the research team.
Andrew Naglich**, PharmD, VA North Texas Healthcare System: Association of SSRI/ SNRI Treatment with Substance Use Disorder Symptom Severity in Veterans with PTSD
The CPNP Foundation Defining the Future Grant not only provides financial assistance but also provides investigators with encouragement that their work is of scale and import enough to have gained the support of their peers. Psychiatric pharmacists practicing today recognize and contend with many drug-related problems that remain unstudied or otherwise ignored in published research. These same pharmacists are uniquely positioned to generate empirical evidence and advance the understanding of psychiatric medications and evidence-based psychiatric practice.
The support I received from the grant and from my discussions with foundation members during the poster session has encouraged me to continue pursuing my goal of producing meaningful, pharmacy-based research as I continue my career in psychiatric pharmacy.
**2018 Original Research Award finalist
Deepika Rao***, Graduate Student, Duquesne University: Community Pharmacist and Substance Abuse Disorders: Attitudes, Knowledge and Practice
The project aims to identify the attitudes of pharmacists, especially harm reduction strategies and stigma towards patients with substance use disorders (SUD) as well as their knowledge of SUD medications and then relate it to their practice or offering of clinical services like screening and MTM services for these patients. It is a cross-sectional survey of about 1000 community pharmacists from the tri-state area and we hope the study helps to better understand the barriers to practice and help improve the role of the pharmacist in fighting the opioid epidemic as well as SUD in general.
This is my master’s thesis project and I am extremely grateful to CPNPF for the Defining the Future grant that made the project possible. The funds were used for my travel expenses to the 2018 conference and to provide an incentive in the form of gift certificates for the responders that I believe has greatly improved the response rate of the survey. I am also thankful for the exposure and the recognition that I received by being a grant recipient and a finalist for the Strategic Goals Award. I hope to continue be an active member of CPNPF and contribute to research in behavioral sciences.
***2018 CPNP Foundation Strategic Goals Award finalist
Applications are now being accepted for the 2018 Defining the Future grant program. To be considered, a complete application must be submitted using the Foundation’s online application portal by the August 31, 2018 deadline. Grantees will be required to submit their project/research for abstract consideration and, if selected, present their research results as a poster at the 2019 CPNP Annual Meeting to be held April 7-10, 2018 at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. Award recipients will be notified by October 1, 2018.
To make a donation to support these grants, please visit cpnpf.org/pledge.