Seminar -1Hospital pharmacy Role of community pharmacist In family planning Presented to , Submitted by,Mrs . Shobha Churi P.

RadhikaLecturer of hospital ph armacy 1 s t M. PharmDept of Pharmacy practice Dept of Pharmacy practiceJSS College of Phar macy JSS College of PharmacyMysore Mysore IntroductionCommunity pharmacists are the health professionals most accessible t o the public. Theysupply medicines in accordance with a prescription or, when le gally permitted, sell themwithout a prescription. In addition to ensuring an acc urate supply of appropriate products,their professional activities also cover co unselling of patients at the time of dispensing of prescription and non-prescrip tion drugs, drug information to health professionals, patientsand the general pu blic, and participation in health-promotion programmes. They maintainlinks with other health professionals in primary health care (1) .India is the second most populous country in the world, contributing about 20% of birthsworldwide. One of the greatest needs of india is to control the tremendously increasingpopu lation .The problems faced by Indian government in controlling population is as follows (2) :1. Socio-economic constraints . High levels of illiteracy, poor access to information,poverty, and gender-base d disparities serve as significant barriers to family planning.These include soc ial stereotyping, lack of male involvement in family planning, andcontinuing ope n discrimination against the girl child, adolescent girls and women.2. Programmatic constraints . Major constraints include limited resources, lack of anintegrated multi-sector al approach, insufficient IEC support, and a weak healthmanagement information s ystem3. Limited awareness of reversible methods . Awareness of reversible methods isrelatively limited among women and men alike . Information given to clients byproviders regarding contraceptive methods is ty pically inadequate, most providershave a bias towards sterilization and only a s mall proportion of clients are informed of reversible methods. 4. Staff shortages and limitations : Staff shortages continue to plague the services atall levels. Where workers are available, they are generally poorly trained and havelittle knowledge of the met hods they are promoting. Only 13% of women reportreceiving a home visit from a h ealth and family planning worker during the last year,and only 11% of those visi ted report receiving family planning services. Womenwithout any children are lea st likely to receive a home visit5. Limited access to quality health services . Access to quality health services islimited in both urban and rural areas. A s ubstantial population residing in slum areashas no access to family planning ser vices owing to poor health infrastructure.Furthermore, only 37% of rural women l ive in a village with a primary health centreor sub-centre. Important sub-groups , such as adolescents are neglected or under-served. Contraceptive choice, and t he quality of and access to care are limited withinthe programme. ROLE OF COMMUNITY PHARMACIST IN FAMILY PLANNING

(3) o Community pharmacist can control rising population by counselling withpeople and doing programme which exhibit problems related with largefamilies. o He can tell about the various family planning measures that are available inthe market at affordable prices. o He can educate the people and convince them about the advantages of having small family o Displaying family planning posters in hospitals and drug stores o By distributing pamphlets about family planning o Most of the rural people have psychosomatic fear that sterilization is painful,d angerous and harmful to health .So pharmacist should remove all such