Survey of Local Residents Nationwide to Build "Mental Health Support" in Pharmacies.

For this study, we defined "mental health support at pharmacies" as "mental support and reassurance through explanations for medications and illnesses, and health consultations," which are not difficult from a mental health perspective, and conducted a survey on how pharmacies can contribute to mental health in local residents (n=580). However, according to this definition, 80.3% answered that they had not received "mental health support at pharmacies." We then asked 77 people who had experienced "mental health support at pharmacies" when they had obtained this support. The answers received were "explanations of prescription medication" (46.8%) and "explanations of over-the-counter drugs [OTC drugs and pharmacist intervention required drugs (yo-shido-iyakuhin)]" (31.2%) during the pharmacy's main duties. Furthermore, in the survey of all 580 residents, the "initiatives that would be good to have in pharmacies to support mental health" were "mental health check" (31.2%), "explanations of prescription medication" (30.2%). Moreover, regardless of whether there were difficulties with mental health, the reasons given by the 55 people who answered that pharmacies should not be involved in mental health were "mental health is-difficult as a specialty" (52.7%) and "mental health is difficult in terms of personal information" (43.6%). Therefore, it is suggested that pharmacy pharmacists should initially provide "mental health support" at pharmacies for mental health areas that do not require specialist knowledge.