Introduction
With the advent of increasingly affordable foreign travel and the opportunity to venture to more exotic parts of the world, pharmacists are more likely to be asked for travel related health advice than ever before. How effective and comprehensive this advice is will be determined largely by how thorough and accurate the initial travel risk assessment is. It is important to provide advice on an individual traveller basis as each person will have their own risk factors and attitude to healthcare risk whilst travelling.
Objectives
After reading this module you will be able to:
- Discuss the importance of a travel risk assessment
- Know the appropriate questions to ask
- Recognise potential causes of illness in travellers
- Identify patients with an increased risk of travel related health problems
- Advise patients on minimising risk when travelling
- Recommend appropriate vaccinations, malaria chemoprophylaxis and other standby treatments such as period delay, altitude sickness, travellers diarrhoea
- Source appropriate resources for travel information