CHEMIST
The CHEMIST study was run by researchers from the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York in partnership with Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust. Collaborators included Keele, Newcastle and University College London Universities, and community pharmacy stakeholders.
This study aimed to find out whether brief psychological support provided via community pharmacies would help people living with long-term health problems to maintain a healthy mood. The study was undertaken at various community pharmacies within the North-East of England.
The first stage of the study involved training staff from eight community pharmacies to deliver a brief psychological support (called Pharmacy Support). Twenty-four people from these pharmacies received the Pharmacy Support intervention. Following feedback from pharmacy staff and people who took part in the study, the team refined the study processes and the Pharmacy Support in preparation for a larger study. In the larger study, up to 100 people were randomly allocated to receive either Pharmacy Support or to continue with their usual care.
This study found that community pharmacy staff can be successfully trained to deliver the intervention, but recruitment was a challenge and pharmacy staff encountered barriers to effective implementation of the study.
CHEMIST was generously funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Public Health Research Programme (Grant Reference Number: 14/186/11). Trial registration ISRCTN11290592.