Non-interventional studies on drug usage and safety aspects in community pharmacies

In Germany, community pharmacies are the first point of contact in terms of self-medication. By giving advice and support, pharmacists play an important role in decision making of patients' self-treatment and self-medication. Therefore, community pharmacies are especially suited to monitor the use and the safety of OTC drugs in post marketing surveillance studies. However, such pharmacy-based epidemiological studies are still uncommon in Germany. Keeping an increasing trend of self-care in mind, monitoring is valuable for different groups of OTC drugs, in particular for those with a previous prescription-only st…