About the group
The research group on social pharmacy was formally established spring 2011. However, social pharmacy has been an area of research at the University of Bergen since the establishment of Centre for Pharmacy in 2003. The main focus of the research has been medicine use and patient safety. The research group is also heavily involved in the education of new pharmacists at the University of Bergen.
Main content
Our main areas of research are
1) Medicine use in the elderly – covering aspects such as epidemiology of medicine use, clinical pharmacy, medicine use in nursing homes, and pharmacy practice. Pharmacy practice study how pharmaceutical knowledge best can be used to promote quality and safety in both prescribing and administration of medicines.
2) Medicines and patient safety, mainly focusing on the use of herbal remedies – increasing use of herbal remedies, especially in vulnerable groups such as pregnant and breastfeeding women, indicate the need for more knowledge regarding safety in use.
It is also our wish to strengthen both teaching and research within pharmacoeconomics. On this topic we collaborate closely with the Social Pharmacy research group at the University of Oslo. They are also involved in several of our ongoing research projects. Other collaborators are:
The General Practice research group, Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care, University of Bergen.
RELIS Vest (regional drug information centre).
Sjukehusapoteka Vest (regional hospital pharmacy enterprise).
University of East Anglia (UEA).
We believe that multidisciplinary studies are a mean to both enhance the patient safety and to raise awareness to pharmacists’ knowledge and how to make use of it. Through research and teaching we wish to broaden our students’ knowledge about pharmacists’ tasks and responsibilities within the society, and show them how they can contribute to a more safe and effective use of medicines.
