Anas El-Aneed
Biography
Dr. El-Aneed is currently an Associate Professor at the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan. He obtained his B.Sc. in Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Chemistry in 1997 from Tishreen University, Syria. He then completed a M.Sc. in 2003 in Pharmacy and Ph.D. in 2007 in Biochemistry from Memorial University of Newfoundland. He was awarded the Governor General Gold medal for his Ph.D. thesis. He worked as Pharmacy Research Specialist at the Newfoundland and Labrador Center for Health Information 2006-2007 and joined the University of Saskatchewan in January 2008. In 2012, he completed an MBA degree from the University of Saskatchewan. His main area of research is focused on the use of different mass spectrometry platforms for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of small organic compounds, with recent emphasis on metabolites, pharmaceuticals and lipid-based drug delivery systems. His funding sources are NSERC (Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada), SHRF (Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation) and CFI (Canada Foundation for Innovation). He is currently the co-chair of the Saskatchewan Mass Spectrometry User Group.
Node Funded Project (September 2016)
Title: Developing Addiction Education Resources for Pharmacists
Principal Investigator: Anas El-Aneed, University of Saskatchewan
Co-investigators:
Sarah Fatani, University of Saskatchewan
Description
Our recent work, in Saskatoon, explored the barriers preventing persons who use drugs (PWUD) from seeking medical help. Two major barriers were discrimination and lack of knowledge among service providers. Subsequently, we evaluated the needs of community pharmacists in Saskatoon for addiction education and identified needs for structured post-graduation workshops as well as the development of a referral guide/ encounter protocol to guide the interactions between pharmacists and PWUD. Missing from our work, however, is information about the needs of PWUD from pharmacists. The proposed project aims to: a) evaluate the needs of PWUD form their community pharmacists; and b) design programs to fill training gaps among practicing community pharmacists.
Results
Patient perspectives: Focus group analysis resulted in four themes that described participants’ perspectives about community pharmacists. The four emergent themes are: 1) conflicted experiences with community pharmacists, 2) lack of knowledge concerning community pharmacists’ extended services, 3) negative experiences in Opioid Agonist Therapy (OAT) program, and 4) needs from community pharmacists. There is significant potential for the patient-pharmacist relationship to address the varying needs of patients who use substances and improve their overall health care experience. Patients who use substances are receptive to pharmacists’ services beyond dispensary; however, respectful communication, provision of drug-related information, and counseling are among the primary demands. Future research should focus on studying the impact of meeting the needs of patients on their treatment outcomes.
Tool Kit Development: The aim of the study was to develop a substance misuse management toolkit for community pharmacists to help them manage their encounters with people who use substances.
A focused literature review was conducted and 2 needs assessment studies, one for community pharmacists and one for patients informed the development of the toolkit. The toolkit is an adaption of the screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) approach, which is one of the most well-defined and effective strategies for substance use management. However, SBIRT is a novel care model in community pharmacy settings. Therefore, a substance misuse management toolkit with 20 items was created for community pharmacists incorporating evidence-based strategies and clinical algorithms. Delphi procedure was used to validate the toolkit.
Two rounds of questions were sent to experts in the field of substance misuse, some of whom were pharmacists. In both rounds, these experts were asked to rate the appropriateness and clarity of items in the toolkit and provide comments and suggestions. Items with a median rating of 7 or more out of 10 were included in the toolkit. In the second round, the experts were asked to rerate the revised version and provide additional feedback. After the second round, agreement was reached for almost all items of the toolkit.
A Delphi procedure was successfully used to provide evidence of the validity of the new guiding toolkit for community pharmacists. The toolkit will be implemented and evaluated to provide additional evidence of validity in practice.
El-Aneed CRISM poster_Nov 2017
Publications:
- Fatani S, Bakke D, D’Eon M, El-Aneed A. (2021).Qualitative assessment of patients’ perspectives and needs from community pharmacists in substance use disorder management. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy. 16(38). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13011-021-00374-x
