Opportunities and challenges in social pharmacy and pharmacy practice research.

Pharmacy practice and social pharmacy are two important research areas within pharmaceutical and health sciences. As the disciplines have undergone and are still undergoing changes, it is useful to reflect on the current state of their research as the basis for discussing further development. The two areas are currently beset by a lack of consensus and charged all too often with evaluating narrowly focused pharmacy services. With the added challenge of diminished funding for research and the pressures to publish results, these fields have to accommodate a much broader research framework than ever before. In this article, the challenges and opportunities in current research are reviewed, and suggestions provided on how to further research in these areas. A systematic content analysis is important to benchmark trends in the types of studies conducted, and to map the collaboration and funding within these areas.