The Use of the Current Network of Pharmacies for Low-Threshold Public Health Interventions as Part of Addiction Treatment Services: Possible Benefits and Limitations
Abstract
Injecting drug users (IDUs) show a high level of risky behaviour and pose a potentially dangerous source for the spread of HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases. Aim was to propose and introduce recommendations intended to support the implementation of additional services for injecting drug users in Czech pharmacies.
Content analysis of qualitative data based on the identification of patterns and/or topics, as well as on narrative discourse, with the subsequent use of data validity control techniques. The results of substudies of the project “The Role of Pharmacies in the System of Health Care and Counselling for (Injecting) Drug Users in the Czech Republic”, direct responses of participant pharmacists, and the related literature on the issue.
Pharmacies and pharmacists represent a promising, and very important and effective, link which, if set up adequately, can be a significant contribution to the public health approach to the care of injecting drug users in the Czech Republic.