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Backgound: It has been challenging to conduct university education in face-to-face and large group settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, there is a pressing need for online educational videos. Objective: To create educational videos to highlight community pharmacists' efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan and investigate pharmacy students' awareness of community pharmacists' efforts. Methods: To assess the importance of five educational videos, we conducted a cross-sectional survey. In July 2020, first-year pharmacy students (n = 120) were invited to watch these educational videos, which dealt with infection control measures for COVID-19 in pharmacies and the questions received from patients on COVID-19. Subsequently, the students were asked to respond to a questionnaire to assess the impact of the videos on them. Results: Seventy percent of the students revealed that after watching the videos, they, for the first time, realized the contributions of community pharmacists toward healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the students reported that their image of the pharmacist profession changed to "a familiar medical professional who is close to patients." Furthermore, 102 of the participants (85%) were satisfied with the videos and more than 60% said they gave them confidence for their future studies. Conclusions: Creating these five educational videos provided the first-year pharmacy students with an improved understanding of the role played by pharmacists in public health. Through the videos, the role of pharmacists during the COVID-19 pandemic was particularly highlighted. This helped students feel closer to pharmacists, whose role is rarely reported in the media. Moreover, their future goal of becoming a pharmacist was concretized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A transparent hybrid film with hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC, Mw: 1.0 x 105) and silica particles (SiO2, average diameter: 12.3 nm) was prepared by a solution cast method, based on the specific dispersion-agglomeration behavior of HPC/SiO2 nanohybrid aqueous suspensions. For the transparent suspension, with 10% of total weight of HPC and SiO2, when the weight composition of SiO2 is 0~30 wt %, free flow is maintained until the water evaporates and a high concentration is reached. Finally, a liquid crystal is formed, and the suspension becomes clouded. The transmittance of the film becomes 50~20% (400nm). However, when the weight composition of SiO2 is 50~80wt%, the transparent suspension gels, after a standing time which depends on concentration. A transparent hybrid film is formed with the state maintained. The transmittance of the film becomes 90%. It is thought this gelling happens due to the forming of hydrogen bonds between hydroxyl groups in HPC and the silanol groups on the SiO2 nanoparticle surface and that the SiO2 nanoparticles are dispersed in the network uniformly, leading to transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]