Introduction to Social Pharmacy Definition and Scope
Definition: A social pharmacy may be defined as the discipline dealing with the role of medicines from the social, scientific, and humanistic perspectives.
or
“A science which deals with social aspects of the profession of pharmacy”
It draws on theories of the social and behavioural sciences and includes health psychology. Social pharmacy can be considered to consist of all the social factors that influence medicine use, such as medicine-related beliefs, regulations, policy, attitudes, medicine information, ethics, and behaviour.
Scope of Social Pharmacy:
- It is the multidisciplinary field of education and research that focuses on the role, provision, regulation, and use of medicines in society. 2. The scope is broad, covering medicines’ social, psycho-social, economic, and organizational aspects.
3. It has played an important role in training programs for community-based pharmacists essential for a hyper-aged society, for community pharmacies’ health management programs aimed at promoting the health of residents, and educational programs for elementary and middle school children.
4. The primary pursuit of Social Pharmacy research is to investigate questions and themes concerning pharmacy practice and medicine use. 5. It is a hybrid field that uses theories and methods from numerous humanistic and social scientific disciplines in order to explore all aspects of pharmacy practice.
Note: The research in social pharmacy can help to study the important opportunities and challenges facing clinical pharmacy within healthcare. 6. Topics relevant to Social Pharmacy consist of all the social factors that influence medicine use, such as medicine- and health-related beliefs, attitudes, rules, relationships, and processes. 7. One general area of research focus addresses social aspects of drugs themselves including drug research and development, drug production, drug distribution, drug prescription, drug information, and drug control.