Mifepristone Access Through Community Pharmacies When Regulated as a Routine Prescription Medication

What proportion of community pharmacies dispense mifepristone within 3 calendar days when mifepristone is regulated as a routine prescription medication?This cross-sectional study using a mystery caller survey of 1460 pharmacies in British Columbia, Canada, found that 66% of pharmacies could dispense mifepristone within 3 days and 12% referred to another pharmacy that could.These findings suggest that when medication abortion is available as a routine health service and mifepristone is regulated as a routine prescription, pharmacists play a key role in providing geographically distributed access to medication abortion; access could be improved through policies and initiatives that enhance and support pharmacist referral networks.

Corresponding Author: Elizabeth Nethery, PhD, Collaboration for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of British Columbia, 2450 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada (elizabeth.nethery@ubc.ca).

Link to the article in your story

We encourage you to link out to this article in your story using the link below. It includes an access token that will give free access to the article for your readers up to one year after publication. (The link will be live after the article publishes and embargo is lifted.)

Please see the article for additional information, including full author list, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Need more information? Contact us.