Accessing PrEP through pharmacies to improve HIV prevention

Project aims

We want to understand if it is possible to use pharmacies to deliver PrEP. This includes identifying the barriers that may stop people from using them.

We also want to understand what training and facilitation pharmacy staff may need to provide this service.

What we hope to achieve

We want to design an intervention that supports people who are at higher risk of HIV to access PrEP through pharmacies. We will find out whether these people would find this type of service acceptable. We will then use the information to plan the design and implementation of PrEP delivery through pharmacies.

We hope to influence policy and clinical practice through our research findings. We will disseminate our findings nationally and internationally by collaborating with public and private bodies, community sector organisations and the global Fast Track Cities Initiative.

What we have done so far

Our researchers searched 10 databases to review the published evidence. They identified 649 potentially relevant journal articles and after screening for eligibility, reviewed 56. Most of the eligible records were original publications about research conducted during or after the year 2020 in the US. This reflected a change in legislation at the time, allowing PrEP delivery through pharmacies in some states.

The research team mapped the barriers and facilitators of community pharmacy PrEP delivery identified in the literature to the COM-B behaviour change model. According to the COM-B model, behaviour change requires capability (skills and knowledge), opportunity (social and environmental), and motivation (importance and intentions).

Once they had conducted the scoping review of the literature, our researchers went on to explore the barriers and facilitators of community pharmacy PrEP delivery for UK pharmacists and community members identified as being at elevated risk of acquiring HIV. They also used the COM-B model to do this.

During this part of the study, the team interviewed 17 community pharmacists and 24 community members, including Black African women, transgender people, and female street sex workers. The barriers and facilitators to pharmacy-based PrEP delivery identified included:

Our researchers are now working on developing a pharmacy PrEP delivery intervention to pilot in five pharmacies in the Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire region to test the feasibility of PrEP delivery via pharmacies.