Pharmacy Practice articles list

India is a country of immense diversity. It is home to people of many different racial, languages, ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds. Groups of people in India differ from each other not only in physical or demographic characteristics but also in distinctive patterns of behavior and these patterns are determined by social and cultural factors like language, region, religion, and caste. Apart from behaviour, economic development, level of education and political culture of the people in various social segments differ from region to region. More you can say that economy and cultures have been enriched by the contributions of migrants from round the globe. In an increasingly globalised world, migratory movements is continuously shaping the countries all over the world. Some countries like India and Ireland, which set the example of economic development and social integration, have the positive impact of the migration by globalisation and some countries like USA, which recently witness racism, xenophobia and discrimination have the negative impact on the migrants. It does not mean India do not face fragmentation and USA do not have cohesion. USA have many stories which show successful integration process, that facilitated the lives of immigrant communities, but being a developed country it still suffers from cultural alienation. In these countries, borders are built within borders to create cultural divides that do not allow people to integrate. Recently, this problem has become more prominent due to the rise of terrorism, clash of cultures in the world, leading to the glorification of stereotypes. People are becoming less accepting towards anyone who does not belong to their region. Migration does not stop after people move from one place to another place. The main question start after that ‘now what’ they will do. That is why this topic needs to be discussed thoroughly in order to find better solutions. This paper will begin with an analysis of different approaches to Migration, discuss the target groups for integration policies, provide indicators of the current situation of migrants and proceed to an analysis of integration tools: legislation, social policies and participatory processes. It will focus not only on the impact of migration but also on social integration, mix culture like indo-western culture in a comparative basis.

Ekta Meena

India is a country of immense diversity. It is home to people of many different racial, languages, ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds. Groups of people in India differ from each other not only in physical or demographic characteristics but also in distinctive patterns of behavior and these patterns are determined by social and cultural factors like language, region, religion, and caste. Apart from behaviour, economic development, level of education and political culture of the people in various social segments differ from region to region. More you can say that economy and cultures have been enriched by the contributions of migrants from round the globe. In an increasingly globalised world, migratory movements is continuously shaping the countries all over the world. Some countries like India and Ireland, which set the example of economic development and social integration, have the positive impact of the migration by globalisation and some countries like USA, which recently witness racism, xenophobia and discrimination have the negative impact on the migrants. It does not mean India do not face fragmentation and USA do not have cohesion. USA have many stories which show successful integration process, that facilitated the lives of immigrant communities, but being a developed country it still suffers from cultural alienation. In these countries, borders are built within borders to create cultural divides that do not allow people to integrate. Recently, this problem has become more prominent due to the rise of terrorism, clash of cultures in the world, leading to the glorification of stereotypes. People are becoming less accepting towards anyone who does not belong to their region. Migration does not stop after people move from one place to another place. The main question start after that ‘now what’ they will do. That is why this topic needs to be discussed thoroughly in order to find better solutions. This paper will begin with an analysis of different approaches to Migration, discuss the target groups for integration policies, provide indicators of the current situation of migrants and proceed to an analysis of integration tools: legislation, social policies and participatory processes. It will focus not only on the impact of migration but also on social integration, mix culture like indo-western culture in a comparative basis.

Ekta Meena

In this paper, investigations are made to analyze the human body temperature during wound healing process due to surgery. Wound is considered after the skin graft. Skin graft is a technique used in plastic surgery. Skin is the first line of defense between the human and environment, it is very susceptible to damage. Internal body or core temperature (Tb) is one of the clinical vital signs along with pulse and respiratory rates. Any disturbance in body temperature will drive complexities in wound healing process. These studies are important in the mechanism of establishing the limits of thermal regulation of human body during the healing process in different situations and conditions. The Finite element method is used to analyze tissues temperature for normal tissues (donor site) and abnormal tissues (tissues after surgery). Appropriate boundary conditions have been framed. Numerical results are obtained using Crank Nicolson Method.

Manisha Jain

Physically unclonable function (PUF) is a hardware security module preferred for hardware feature based random number and secret key generation. Security of a cryptographic system relies on the quality of the challenge-response pair, it is necessary that the key generation mechanism must unpredictable and its response should constant under different operating condition. Metastable state in CMOS latch is undesirable since it response becomes unpredictable, this feature used in this work to generate a unique response. A feedback mechanism is developed which forces the latch into the metastable region; after metastable state, latch settle to high or state depends on circuit internal condition and noise which cannot be predicted. Obtained inter hamming variation for 8 PUF is 51% and average intra hamming distance is 99.76% with supply voltage variation and 96.22% with temperature variation.

Abhishek Kumar

One of the unique features of Indian society is prevalence of caste system which was originated thousands of years back to demarcate the people engaged in different occupation or jobs. Initially it was not much rigid but gradually people belonging to upper castes for their own selfish means to maintain their monopoly made this arrangement hereditary and started treating people of lower castes disgracefully. For preservation of this system, people started controlling their women to prevent inter-caste marriages and the concept of endogamy came up. This robbed away many types of freedom from women. For women belonging to lower castes, this situation is worse as they are doubly subjugated on the basis on caste as well as gender. Men belonging to their own caste treat them as secondary beings. This paper throws light on this intersection. How intersection of these two kinds of inequalities place them at the lowest position in Indian society. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar rises as their leader who all his life worked for empowerment of downtrodden section of society. He argues that education is the primary tool for evading these differences among people. He further emphasizes to adopt the concept of exogamy to break the backbone of Indian caste system and to immediately leave a religion or culture which legitimizes such system of inequality among people of the same land.

Swati sharma

One of the unique features of Indian society is prevalence of caste system which was originated thousands of years back to demarcate the people engaged in different occupation or jobs. Initially it was not much rigid but gradually people belonging to upper castes for their own selfish means to maintain their monopoly made this arrangement hereditary and started treating people of lower castes disgracefully. For preservation of this system, people started controlling their women to prevent inter-caste marriages and the concept of endogamy came up. This robbed away many types of freedom from women. For women belonging to lower castes, this situation is worse as they are doubly subjugated on the basis on caste as well as gender. Men belonging to their own caste treat them as secondary beings. This paper throws light on this intersection. How intersection of these two kinds of inequalities place them at the lowest position in Indian society. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar rises as their leader who all his life worked for empowerment of downtrodden section of society. He argues that education is the primary tool for evading these differences among people. He further emphasizes to adopt the concept of exogamy to break the backbone of Indian caste system and to immediately leave a religion or culture which legitimizes such system of inequality among people of the same land.

Swati sharma

Rasa aushadhis are known for their uniqueness in curing the diseases with a very low dosage. These formulations are divided into two types based on their mode of preparation i.e., Single drug and Compound drug formulations. Based on their origin, the drugs are divided into three types, Herbal, Mineral and Animal. Any of these two or three together is combined to make a compound formulation. Apart from these, the other major factor which is needed for a formulation is the Rasa Panchaka of a Drug. Many of the formulations are being prepared based on their availability, keeping their Rasa Panchaka and Samprapti vighatana in mind. These formulations are designed in such a way that two or more drugs will be having one common quality, or Opposite Qualities or an Antidote of a particular Vishadravya, which can help in curing the disease. So an attempt is made to Review Tribhuvanakeerti Rasa with its Probable mode of action.

Suri abhiram

The rate of aging is rapidly increasing and the term of geriatric refers to offer a medical care to elderly people. Drug consumption study on geriatric population is a vital issue since this group is totally neglected in Libya. The aim of this study was to assess drug utilization pattern among elderly patients in terms of world health organization core prescribing indicators and to evaluate the treatment cost. A total of 106 prescriptions were randomly collected from different community pharmacies located in Tripoli during the summer 2019, and were evaluated (total number of prescribed drugs is 359) for their clinical efficacy and safety. The findings revealed that 60 drugs acting on GIT (16.7%), 50 antimicrobial drugs (13.9%), 31 antihypertensive drugs (8.6%) and 30 drugs for respiratory diseases (8.4%) were prescribed to patients who are 65 years old or more. With regard to disease pattern in the elderly Libyan patients, 27 drugs were prescribed for diabetes mellitus (7.5%), 24 drugs for cardiovascular drugs (6.7%) and 14 drugs for anti-hyperlipidemia (3.9%). According to the WHO core drug use indicator pattern, the average number of drugs prescribed per encounter was 3.3. Prescription by generic name was low (41.5%). Antibiotics were 36.8% while injections were 26.6%. Thus, this study suggest that geriatric medicine and rational drug use should strongly be implanted in medical schools and teaching hospitals. Besides, a drug pattern use of the Libyan community is urgently required to avoid drug prescribing errors.

Fathi M. Sherif

The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pharmacovigilance by healthcare professionals in Benghazi. A structured questionnaire adapted from a previous validated study. One hundred questionnaires were distributed in August 2019 and filled by healthcare providers working at different hospitals in Benghazi, Libya. Participants were 57% physicians and 43% pharmacists (age average 31-40 years). 47% had correctly defined Pharmacovigilance while 19% know what is meant by adverse drug reactions. Moreover, 61% of the participants did not share information about raising adverse drug reactions in some patients with other healthcare professionals. 35% of them did not know about the adverse drug reactions reporting system in Libya. Whereas, 42% have strongly agreed that reporting adverse drug reactions is essential. 41% and 45% of participants believed that reporting adverse drug reactions is not time-consuming and increases patient safety, respectively. In conclusion, educational programs and training courses about the importance of Pharmacovigilance for physicians and pharmacists in Benghazi are needed.

Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

In addition to the ordinary pharmacists’ role in dispensing and ensuring safety and efficacy of drugs, pharmacy profession is also concerning with clinical services towards community through multidisciplinary approach. In this regard, the clinical pharmacy is an area of pharmacy that concerned with the science and practice of rational drug use in which clinical pharmacist provides patient care that optimizes medication therapy and promotes health, wellness and prevention of diseases. During the recent crises of COVID-19 pandemic, the health systems appeared to be weak worldwide. Health care professionals seem to have nothing to present to their COVID-19 infected patients as no effective medications are approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) yet. Moreover, physicians are worried about the secondary infection for COVID-19 patients, therefore, treatment protocols were designed and mostly applied for critical COVID-19 patients who have been hospitalized in Libya. WHO does not recommend antibiotic therapy or prophylaxis for patients with mild COVID-19 unless symptoms of a bacterial infection exist. This monograph will highlight the widespread use of antibiotics and anticoagulants for COVID-19 patients at Maetiga Hopital in Tripoli, Libya

Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Vaccination hesitation may affect the national efforts to slow down the spread of coronavirus among the population. This study was aimed to explore the views of final year pharmacy students at Faculty of Pharmacy, Elmergib University, Al kums, Libya towards COVID-19 vaccination. The study was conducted before the vaccine becomes available in Libya. A semi-structured questionnaire was distributed on March 14, 2021 to the fourth- year pharmacy students at Elmergib ‎University, Al khums Libya. Results showed a high degree of hesitancy towards vaccination against this virus (52.6%). Student's participants who said they would take the vaccine probably have said that because of their stress that caused by COVID-19 pandemic (47.4%). With regard to the gender, the participants’ views had no significant difference between male and female students on whether to take the vaccine or not (P = 0.825). In conclusion, hesitations towards vaccination and stress caused by student fear from the virus need to be addressed to minimize public reluctant to take the vaccine and to improve the education process during the pandemic.

Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Nowadays, the pharmacy profession is moving toward a multidisciplinary approach. Besides the pharmacists’ role beyond dispensing and checking the safety, quality and efficacy of the delivered medications, pharmacists are currently using their clinical knowledge to serve the community through different disciplines including drug counseling, vaccination, screening, and drug therapy management

Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Living with epilepsy, its unpredictable seizures, and its comorbid conditions present many challenges over the time. Continued educational efforts can play a key role in helping people learn to live with epilepsy and understand epileptic medications over the life span. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of pharmacist-initiated education on patients with epilepsy. Prospective and observational pilot study to evaluate the impact of educational interventions during February and March, 2019 was conducted. A total of seven patients with epilepsy was included in this study. They received ordinary consultation care in National Centre of Epilepsy at Ali Omar Askar Hospital in Tripoli, Libya. Knowledge assessment questionnaire was assessed initially and patients were subjected to pharmacist-initiated education and they have given follow up reporting card. A follow up for one month has continuously been done and final evaluation included: knowledge assessment questionnaire, adverse drug reactions and epileptic attacks reporting. All the patients completed the pre and post education questionnaire. There was no significant difference between the patients’ knowledge before and after interventional questionnaire except for only two patients which is statistically significant (P=0.03) and (P=0.02) whose knowledge was significantly enhanced by post education. Thus, there are a lot of opportunities and challenges for pharmacists to play a role in epileptic care and education as patients with epilepsy are not knowledgeable about their illness regardless of age, educational background or duration of epilepsy. This role must be highly enforced and implemented in patients with epilepsy.

Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

The rate of aging is rapidly increasing and the term of geriatric refers to offer a medical care to elderly people. Drug consumption study on geriatric population is a vital issue since this group is totally neglected in Libya. The aim of this study was to assess drug utilization pattern among elderly patients in terms of world health organization core prescribing indicators and to evaluate the treatment cost. A total of 106 prescriptions were randomly collected from different community pharmacies located in Tripoli during the summer 2019, and were evaluated (total number of prescribed drugs is 359) for their clinical efficacy and safety. The findings revealed that 60 drugs acting on GIT (16.7%), 50 antimicrobial drugs (13.9%), 31 antihypertensive drugs (8.6%) and 30 drugs for respiratory diseases (8.4%) were prescribed to patients who are 65 years old or more. With regard to disease pattern in the elderly Libyan patients, 27 drugs were prescribed for diabetes mellitus (7.5%), 24 drugs for cardiovascular drugs (6.7%) and 14 drugs for anti-hyperlipidemia (3.9%). According to the WHO core drug use indicator pattern, the average number of drugs prescribed per encounter was 3.3. Prescription by generic name was low (41.5%). Antibiotics were 36.8% while injections were 26.6%. Thus, this study suggest that geriatric medicine and rational drug use should strongly be implanted in medical schools and teaching hospitals. Besides, a drug pattern use of the Libyan community is urgently required to avoid drug prescribing errors.

Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Pharmacists stand alongside with other professionals in representing essential healthcare during health emergencies such as COVID-19 pandemic. The present study seeks to explore the behavior and attitude of community pharmacists across various pharmacies throughout this pandemic towards the safety of workplace environment for staff and patients. An online questionnaire has been prepared and distributed to 145 community pharmacies during March to May, 2020. The collected results and data showed that community pharmacists in Libya have a good knowledge and adherence to preventive and protective measures published by FIP, WHO and other health-related organizations to protect themselves and society from infection. The pharmacist role in educating and information provision of the current disease and its management is still going on regardless the pandemic. A negative evaluation to the government support during the pandemic is clear from participant's replies. In Conclusion, this study looks forward to disclosing the current activities undertaken across various community pharmacy settings concerning safety of the workplace environment for both staff and patients. A clear and relatively realistic picture of the extent of commitment and knowledge of pharmacists of the necessary aspects needed to deal with this pandemic within community pharmacies is suggested. The extent of community pharmacist's knowledge, readiness and speed of their response to such a pandemic have been identified.

Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

During COVID-19 pandemic health professional need to develop good communication skills. Good communication skills will lead to professionalism. The information that are given to patients, their families and the community has to be transparent, true and scientifically relevant. The awareness one creates about the pandemic includes mode of infection, transmission, symptoms, vaccines, vaccination, viral heterogeneity and mutations. Such transmission of true information requires proper training of health personnel including the social media in developing good communication skills

Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Hypertension is a public health issue that significantly increases the risk of health problems and decreases health quality of life of the patients. Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors are used to control hypertension by preventing production of angiotensin II in turn decrease blood pressure, thus it may enhance the quality of life. This study aims to assess the effect of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors on the quality of life of patients with hypertensive aging 40 years or older in Benghazi city in comparison with other classes of hypertension medications. A case control observational study was conducted, adopting the structured face-to-face interviewing survey technique. Over 150 patients who visited Benghazi medical center during the study period (November, 2019 to March, 2020), to follow up their chronic disease. The investigators used a pre-validated, pre-piloted questionnaire that has been adopted from SF 36 and modified according to the updated literature review; responses to each question were coded and analyzed. The results display that antihypertensive medications were found to be significantly related to the limitation on the physical activity domain and found that medications decrease the limitation on the activity with about 20% of the patients who taking angiotensin receptor blockers (20%) and 30% of the patients taking angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, 40% of the patients had no limitations on bending kneeling and stooping. Moreover, on the limitations on walking more than one kilometre, the results were about 15% of the patients taking angiotensin receptor blockers and 30% of the patients taking angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors had a slightly or no limitation on walking more than a kilometre. Thus, the findings indicate that antihypertensive medications have a positive effect on quality of life of the patient in limitation on activity domain but no conclusive difference was found between angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers medications.

Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

The most successful and cost effective method for control the COVID-19 pandemic is the vaccination. Currently, there are different COVID-19 vaccine introduced into Libyan market. This study aimed to evaluate and compare the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine among general population and students in Benghazi city. A cross sectional survey was conducted during March 2021 among 440 respondents (240 general populations and 200 students) using a self-administered questionnaire. The results were considerably similar among the two groups of participants. Only 10.9% said that they infected with COVID-19 during the pandemic period. About two thirds of the respondents agreed to be vaccinated against COVID-19 when available whereas the majority said they would wait some time before taking the vaccine (71.4%). Approximately, one third of the participants preferred the Sputnik vaccine, 24% preferred the Pfizer and BioNTech and 19.2% preferred Oxford (AstraZeneca) vaccine. More than a half (55.9%) of the participants are refused to pay for the vaccine. The majority of the respondents do not think the vaccine alone will be enough in protection against the COVID-19 (79.8%). There was no significant association between general population, students and the COVID-19 vaccine acceptance (p = 0.776). Additionally, there was no significant correlations between socio-demographic data and attitudes of the respondents with the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine (p > 0.05), except for using hand sanitizers daily was significantly associated among the general population (p = 0.008). In conclusion, although, the general population and students have a good acceptability to the COVID-19 vaccine, more education health programs and promotion are wanted to reduce the vaccine hesitancy by declaring the importance of the vaccine, showing sufficient data stabilize the vaccine safety.

Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

The pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) presents an unprecedented challenge to identify effective drugs in the prevention and treatment process. At present, there is no proven therapy for this disease, although therapeutic approaches continue to be carried out using traditional medicines (herbal) and pharmacological therapy. Information about SARS-CoV-2 virology has rapidly developed and scientists try to provide a number of potential drugs. Remdesivir has strong in vitro activity against SARS-CoV-2. Several potential drugs are currently underway in a clinical trial. Chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, and oseltamivir have not been proven to have efficacy, and the benefits of corticosteroids are still diverse. Current clinical evidence does not support the termination of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers, coagulation therapy in patients with COVID-19 concomitant with comorbidities.

Syahrul Tuba

The kidney stones are one of the most widely spreading disorders in the world. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of ethanolic extract of Didymocarpuspedicellata and Ashwagandha for its antiurolithiatic activity in rats. Urolithiasis was induced in adult male albino wistar rats by 0.75% of ethylene glycol for 28 days. The effect of the oral administration of the ethanolicextracts has been studied and is compared with the effect of oral administration of Cystone(Himalaya) as a standard on Wistar rat. Ethylene glycol feeding resulted in hyperoxaluria as well as increased renal excretion of calciumand phosphate. Supplementation with ethanolic extract of the plants significantly reduced the elevated urinary oxalate, showing a regulatory action on endogenous oxalate synthesis. Both the plant extract showed significant antiurolithiatic activity

Zeenath Banu