Nutritional Intervention Research in Community Pharmacy: A Systematic Review of the Literature Using An Analytical Framework

The community pharmacy is an accessible, conveniently located and widely respected health care destination. As such it presents significant opportunities for settings based intervention through which to promote optimal nutrition amongst the community, in particular to pregnant women and new mothers. This systematic review of intervention research conducted in the community pharmacy setting, relating specifically to nutrition promotion was undertaken. Health databases (PubMed Central, Medline, Ovid Fulltext) were searched systematically Reference lists were also searched for relevant articles. Abstracts were reviewed for inclusion according to defined criteria. The analytical framework developed was used to deconstruct and analyse interventions from a public health nutrition perspective. Data abstracted from the studies included and related to: 1) problem analysis, 2) determinants, 3) target group 4) objectives, 5) intervention/strategy mix, 6) Theoretical assumptions/logic 7) level of prevention 8) evaluation method and results 9) context effects and 10) sustainability/cost implications. The results of this review identified a lack of published studies set in community pharmacies focusing specifically on nutrition promotion. Interventions which included nutrition promotion as one aspect of the strategy mix appeared unsustainable. All studies included in this review focussed primarily on secondary prevention. Despite an apparent opportunity within the community pharmacy setting to undertake nutrition promotion relative to primary prevention, there is a dearth of published intervention studies providing intelligence to guide intervention planning. This study highlights the need for settings based intervention studies which focus on evaluating primary prevention in community pharmacy relating to nutrition