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This consensus guidance is for community pharmacists in diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) management with a combination of neurotropic B vitamins. A multidisciplinary team including endocrinology, neurology, and pharmacy from Thailand discussed and aligned the practical scheme of DPN management in the community pharmacy setting, using the literature review and having face-to-face meeting. Five major statements have been endorsed as consensus recommendations for DPN care with strong acknowledgment. The aims of DPN management included reducing symptoms and the risk of complications, minimising adverse reactions from treatment regimens, and improving patients' knowledge and adherence to the treatment strategies. An initial screening process using a 7 items interview of Douleur Neuropathique 4 (DN4) questionnaire should be implemented to identify patients at risk of developing DPN. Subsequently, pharmacologic, and non-pharmacologic treatment should be employed based on patient-centered care. An interesting approach is combination of neurotropic B vitamins, which may be used as monotherapy or combination therapy to control DPN symptoms. The combined therapy potentially exhibits a synergistic effect and improves patient adherence. The consensus would be further considered in context of harmonisation of routine practice and country requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peripheral neuropathy (PN) often remains undiagnosed (~80%). Earlier diagnosis of PN may reduce morbidity and enable earlier risk factor reduction to limit disease progression. Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is the most common PN and the 10 g monofilament is endorsed as an inexpensive and easily performed test for DPN. However, it only detects patients with advanced neuropathy at high risk of foot ulceration. There are many validated questionnaires to diagnose PN, but they can be time‐consuming and have complex scoring systems. Primary care physicians (PCPs) have busy clinics and lack access to a readily available screening method to diagnose PN. They would prefer a short, simple, and accurate tool to screen for PN. Involving the patient in the screening process would not only reduce the time a physician requires to make a diagnosis but would also empower the patient. Following an expert meeting of diabetologists and neurologists from the Middle East, South East Asia and Latin America, a consensus was formulated to help improve the diagnosis of PN in primary care using a simple tool for patients to screen themselves for PN followed by a consultation with the physician to confirm the diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The Good Pharmacy Practice (GPP) standards in Thailand have been legally implemented for all drugstores since 2014. However, customer satisfaction has not been studied. This research aimed to explore the satisfaction of the customers with the facilities and services received from drugstores under the GPP standards and examine the impact of satisfaction toward each GPP domain on overall satisfaction (OS) and the intention to receive the pharmacy services as the first choice in the case of common and non-serious illnesses (IntR)., Methods: This research was a cross-sectional survey study. The Google Forms for data collection was distributed via the online social media between June and August 2021. The satisfaction toward OS, IntR, and the GPP domains; places and equipment (PE), personnel (P), quality control (QC), and pharmacy services (PS) were collected using 5-Likert scales. Descriptive statistics, intra-class correlation, and multiple regression were used in data analysis with statistical significance at p-value<0.05., Results: Three hundred and eighty-eight drugstore's customers responded to the questionnaires. Most customers rated the OS and the IntR at the highest level. The mean of the OS was 4.4±0.7 and the IntR was 4.6±0.7 points out of five. The OS and the IntR were highly correlated with the ICC of 0.719 (p-value<0.001). The satisfactions toward each GPP criteria were ranged between 3.9±0.9 to 4.6±0.7 indicating high levels of satisfaction. All 4 domains of the GPP standards explained the OS and the IntR with R square at 0.541 and 0.363, respectively. However, only PS and PE impacted the OS and only QC and PS impacted the IntR with statistical significance., Conclusion: Thai customers had high levels of the OS and the IntR toward drugstore facilities and services based on the GPP standards. The PS was the domain that statistically influenced both the OS and the IntR, whereas the PE and the QC also statistically influenced the OS and the IntR, respectively. Since PE was the most weighted domain for current inspection, PS and QC should be more emphasized in future revision of the GPP inspection., (Copyright: © Pharmacy Practice.)