Among the respondents, 29%
erroneously thought that life-threatening respiratory
depression was a danger with pain control, and 38%
erroneously believed that opioids were the preferred drug
for palliative sedation. One in three responding pharmacists did not think his/her theoretical knowledge was
sufficient to provide advice on pain control. Most
pharmacists had working agreements with physicians on
euthanasia (81%), but fewer had working agreements on
palliative sedation (46%) or opioid therapy (25%). Based
on the experience of most of responding pharmacists
(93%), physicians were open to unsolicited advice on
opioid prescriptions. The majority of community pharmacists (94%) checked opioid prescriptions most often only
after dispensing, while it was not a common practice
among the majority of hospital pharmacists (68%) to
check prescriptions at all