For this session, use the preceding article on parasites, as well as other sources of information, to strengthen your knowledge. This will give you more insight and information to pass on to your customers.

You can use information sources you may have in the pharmacy, such as other articles, OTC medicines guides and manufacturer’s literature and websites such as NHS Choices.

In order to make it useful and relevant to your work:

• Consider what advice you could give to a mother who is worried that her daughter may get head lice, as it’s going round at school. What questions might you ask? Can head lice be prevented? If so, how? Would you recommend a product at this stage?
• What is meant by physically acting treatments for head lice? Why are they often preferred?
• Which head lice treatments work with one application and which require two?
• What are the symptoms of severe threadworms?
• What hygiene measures should a household put in place when one member has threadworms?
• What are the differences in symptoms between those caused by bedbugs and scabies?
• How would you advise a customer looking for a pest controller to eradicate bedbugs? Search for a list of pest controllers according to postcode so that you can quickly help a customer.