[A research of letter color visibility in package insert information using simulator].

Package insert of pharmaceutical drug is one of the most prioritized information for pharmacists to secure safety of patients. However, the color of character, size, font and so on are various company by company product to product from a viewpoint of visibility. It may be cause a serious accident in case visibility is unclear, although it is the most important information. Moreover, package insert with high visibility is required for color vision defectives from a viewpoint of a universal design. Then, the authors selected the package insert which has the boxed warning in the ethical pharmaceutical currently stored mostly in the present health insurance pharmacy and quantified the red color using the color meter. We advocate the state of a suitable package insert from a viewpoint of a universal design, whether the red color is high visible or not for color vision defectives using simulator.

[Actual state of understanding and utilization of "home pharmacy" in residents and their regional differences].

To know the actual states of understanding and utilization of "home pharmacy" in regional residents and their regional differences, we performed questionnaire survey for the residents in Ueda-shi in Nagano and the Kita-tama area in Tokyo, where it was found in the past survey that the medical activities as "home pharmacy" in Ueda-shi was remarkably higher than those in the Kita-tama area. By the present survey it was confirmed that the percentages of the person who keeps "home pharmacy" and of the person who fixes a pharmacy to get a filled prescription were remarkably higher in the residents of Ueda-shi than those of the Kita-tama area. The level of understanding of "home pharmacy" was also higher in the residents of Ueda-shi. These results suggested that the spread of "home pharmacy" is influenced by the extent of activity of regional pharmacy and the regional society of pharmacists.

[Actual state of medical activities as "home pharmacy" including preventive medicine in community pharmacy and their regional differences].

To determine the "home pharmacy" activities including preventive medicine in community pharmacies and their regional differences, we conducted two questionnaire surveys of pharmacies belonging to the pharmacists' association in four areas, two metropolitan areas (Kita-tama area and Minato-ku in Tokyo) and two rural areas (Ueda-shi in Nagano and Aira-gun in Kagoshima) in 1998 and 2007. The questionnaire consisted of 42 questions including the scale and characteristics of the pharmacy, the offering of information to patients and information collection from patients, and activities related to home care medicine, environmental sanitation, and healthcare. Based on 14 factors in the questionnaire, an index of "Community Medicine Contributed by Home Pharmacies" was evaluated to represent the extent of activity including preventive medicine in pharmacy. The median of the indexes in the four areas rose in 2007, and was the highest in Ueda-shi. However, the increase in the index was found to result from increases in activity related to clinical medicine such as the use of "Medication Notebooks" and the circulation of "Pharmaceutical Instructions" and did not result from increased activity related to preventive medicine. Factors to promote preventive medicine activity are discussed based on the data from Aira-gun where the greatest home care medicine activity occurred and from Ueda-shi where the greatest environmental sanitation and healthcare activities occurred.

[The problems of multiple-chemical sensitivity patients in using medicinal drugs].

Multiple-chemical sensitivity (MCS) patients are presumed to be compelled to lead inconvenient and difficult lives, because unpleasant and multiorgan symptoms are caused by very small amounts of various chemicals in the living environment. Therefore we conducted a questionnaire survey of MCS patients who are members of support groups to elucidate the problems of MCS patients in using medicinal drugs. In this report, we selected 205 persons who stated that they had been "diagnosed with MCS by a physician" or "a physician suspected a diagnosis of MCS" on the questionnaire as the reason they judged themselves to have MCS. The questionnaire results showed that about 60% of MCS patients have difficulty in using medicinal drugs and that the difficulties are more likely to occur in women, in people 40-59 years old, and in patients who developed MCS in reaction to pesticides or medicinal drugs. The prescribed drugs and OTC drugs noted as usable or unusable by patients in the questionnaire were analyzed from the viewpoint of their medicinal constituents. The results indicated that lidocaine is likely to be unusable by MCS patients. In addition, caffeine, aspirin, chlorphenylamine maleate, minocycline hydrochloride, levofloxacin, etc. were also likely to be unusable by MCS patients. Many patients who recorded drugs containing the above-mentioned remedies as unusable had a past history of allergy, suggesting that allergy is involved in the difficulties of MCS patients in using medicinal drugs.