Mixed methods PhD, three linked studies

Thesis defence poster

A thesis defence poster compresses years of doctoral work onto one board, and the reliable way to do it is to make the research questions the spine. This A0 portrait example shows a fictional pharmacy PhD cut down to three questions, each answered by one number: 76 percent of pharmacists willing, 0.6 fewer inappropriate prescriptions per patient, and 38.40 per review.

Create a poster with OneCraftA0 Portrait, printed at 841 by 1189 millimetres

The whole board

The poster at full size, exactly as it prints. Every number, citation and caption on it was written for this example, so the layout is being judged on real content.

Can community pharmacies run structured medication reviews for adults over 75? A three study thesis

R. Mensah ¹, L. Okafor ¹, S. Brandt ²

1 School of Pharmacy, Wexcombe University · 2 Wexcombe Primary Care Network

THE THREE QUESTIONS

Q1 Readiness: are community pharmacists willing and able to run structured medication reviews for adults over 75? Q2 Effect: does a review change what those patients are prescribed? Q3 Cost: what does one review cost the pharmacy that runs it? Three linked studies answer one question each. A national survey answers Q1, a before and after study in nine pharmacies answers Q2, and a micro costing of 420 reviews answers Q3, so every number on this board traces back to one of the three questions.

WHAT WE DID

Study 1. Survey of community pharmacists on willingness, training and current review activity; 312 of 761 responded (41 percent), online and on paper.

Study 2. Before and after review of 1,148 patients aged over 75 in 9 pharmacies, six months each side of the service starting. Outcome: potentially inappropriate prescriptions per patient.

Study 3. Micro costing of 420 reviews with staff time logs, consumables and overheads, priced in local currency units at 2025 rates.

Analysis. Mixed effects model with pharmacy as a random effect for Study 2; bootstrapped mean cost per review over 2,000 resamples for Study 3.

Ethics. Approved by the faculty research ethics committee, reference 2023/118. Every patient in Study 2 gave written consent.

RESULTS

Q1: 238 of the 312 responding pharmacists (76 percent) were willing to run structured reviews, and 61 percent had already completed a review course. Q2: potentially inappropriate prescriptions fell from 2.9 to 2.3 per patient across 1,148 patients, a difference of 0.6 (95% CI 0.4 to 0.8), and the fall appeared in all nine pharmacies. Q3: the mean cost was 38.40 in local currency units per review, of which pharmacist time was 24.10, and the median staff time was 27 minutes.

After

Before

Figure 1. Potentially inappropriate prescriptions per patient before and after review, by pharmacy (n = 9 pharmacies, 1,148 patients).

Source: Trial dataset, 2026.

DISCUSSION

Read together, the three answers make one argument: the workforce is willing, the service moves prescribing in the right direction, and the price of a review is closer to a vaccination than to a clinic appointment. Each answer also carries a limit that the next study has to repair, and those limits are stated here at the same size as the findings. The readiness estimate rests on a 41 percent response. Pharmacists who already care about medication review were more likely to answer, so 76 percent willing is best read as the ceiling among the engaged rather than the national floor. The training figure has the same lean: 61 percent with a completed course describes responders, not the register. Study 2 has no control arm. National prescribing audits show potentially inappropriate prescriptions falling by roughly 0.1 per patient per year on their own, so as much as one sixth of the observed 0.6 difference could be background drift rather than the service. The fall appeared in all nine pharmacies and was largest where baseline prescribing was worst, which is the pattern a real effect would leave, but only a controlled trial can separate the two, and the thesis claims no more than that. The costing is the most portable result. Pharmacist time is 63 percent of the 38.40 total, so the cost of the service moves almost one for one with pharmacist wages, and a pharmacy can rebuild the estimate for its own pay rates from Figure 2. At 27 minutes of staff time, two reviews fit in the quiet hour of a normal dispensing day, which is what makes the service plausible without extra staffing. For the defence, the shape of the argument matters as much as its content. Each study was designed after the previous one reported, so the survey chose the pharmacies, the pharmacies generated the prescribing question, and the costing priced the answer. The board keeps that chain visible: every result sentence names its question, and every limitation names the study it belongs to.

REFERENCES

1.Mensah R, Okafor L. Pharmacist readiness for structured medication review: a national survey. Journal of Pharmacy Practice Research 2025;41(2):118-131.

2.Mensah R, Brandt S, Okafor L. Medication review and inappropriate prescribing in adults over 75: a before and after study. Primary Care Studies 2026;14(1):22-38.

3.Okafor L, Quist H. Micro costing community pharmacy services: methods and a worked example. Health Services Economics 2024;9(4):301-317.

0.6

fewer inappropriate prescriptions per patient

95% CI 0.4 to 0.8, n = 1,148 patients

Cost per review

Figure 2. Cost per review by component, local currency units, mean of 420 reviews. The four components sum to the 38.40 total.

Source: Trial dataset, 2026.

WHAT THIS THESIS ADDS

Community pharmacies can run structured medication reviews with the workforce they already have. Three quarters of surveyed pharmacists are willing and most are trained, a review removes 0.6 potentially inappropriate prescriptions per patient, and each one costs 38.40 and 27 minutes of staff time. The evidence now justifies the next step, a controlled trial with prescribing drift measured in a comparison group.

Three quarters of pharmacists are willing and most are trained

Reviews cut inappropriate prescribing by 0.6 per patient

A review costs 38.40 and 27 minutes of staff time

A controlled trial is the next step

Block by block

What each block on the board is for, in the order a reader walks it.

Title band, authors and QR: The title is the thesis question itself, not the thesis title page: can community pharmacies run structured medication reviews for adults over 75? The candidate is marked as presenting author, the supervisor sits beside her with the same affiliation, and the QR code links the examiner to the repository entry.
The three questions: The intro block names Q1 Readiness, Q2 Effect and Q3 Cost in three sentences, and the three iconed panels across the top carry one question each. Everything below answers one of them, which is what keeps a three study thesis from reading as three separate posters.
What we did, study by study: The methods protocol gives each study one labelled entry: a survey with 312 of 761 responding, a before and after review of 1,148 patients in 9 pharmacies, and a micro costing of 420 reviews, then one entry each for analysis and ethics. Five entries is the cap on this layout, and it is enough.
Study 2 by pharmacy (Figure 1): Figure 1 shows potentially inappropriate prescriptions per patient before and after review in each of the nine pharmacies. Every pair drops, from 3.1 to 2.4 at the highest baseline. Showing all nine pairs instead of two summary bars lets an examiner see the effect was not carried by one site.
The key number: The stat block prints 0.6 fewer inappropriate prescriptions per patient with its interval, 95% CI 0.4 to 0.8, and its denominator of 1,148 patients underneath. One number answers Q2; the other two questions are answered in the results text so the board has exactly one headline figure.
Cost per review (Figure 2): The horizontal bar chart splits the 38.40 cost into pharmacist time at 24.10, technician time at 6.30, consumables at 2.40 and overheads at 5.60. The four components sum to the total printed in results, so the arithmetic is checkable at the stand, which is where examiners check it.
Discussion and limits: Each answer carries its limit in the same type size: the 41 percent survey response reads as a ceiling among the engaged, the missing control arm means up to a sixth of the 0.6 could be background prescribing drift, and the costing moves with pharmacist wages. Nothing is footnoted away.
What this thesis adds, and references: The conclusion block states the contribution in four checkable lines, ending with the next step: a controlled trial. The three references are invented for this fictional study, because the reference block is required on this layout; on your board, replace them with your sources.
How to adapt this board: Map your own thesis onto the three question cards: most doctorates reduce to two or three questions once you try. Give each study one protocol entry, put your single strongest number in the stat block, and retype the two charts with your own values, keeping the sums reconciled with the results text.

What makes this board work

Three questions, three answers

The icon cards carry Q1 to Q3 and the results text answers them with the same labels: 76 percent willing, 0.6 fewer prescriptions, 38.40 per review. An examiner can check each answer against its question in seconds.

Limitations in the same type size

The missing control arm and the 41 percent survey response sit in the discussion block at body size, beside a national drift estimate of 0.1 per patient per year, not in a footnote a reader has to hunt for.

The cost splits into four

Figure 2 breaks the 38.40 review cost into 24.10, 6.30, 2.40 and 5.60. The components sum to the total in the results text, so the board audits itself.

Questions people ask

What goes on a thesis defence poster?

The research questions, one method line per study, one finding per question, the contribution and the limits. This board spends its space in that order: three questions in the intro, five protocol entries, three answers in results, and a four line contribution block at the end. The full thesis stays behind the QR code.

How is a defence poster different from a conference poster?

A conference poster reports one study; a defence poster spans several, so the spine has to be the questions rather than a single result. This example gives each of its three studies one protocol entry and one answer, and the discussion is about what the answers mean together, not any one of them alone.

How many words should it carry?

This board runs about 950 words across all blocks, which is near the comfortable ceiling for an A0 portrait layout. The intro and results columns hold about 480 characters each, and the discussion block is the only place long prose fits, at roughly 2,000 characters.

Should I include every study from the thesis?

Only the ones that answer a question on the board. A pilot that shaped the design belongs in the viva, not the poster. This example includes exactly three studies because it asks exactly three questions, and each study exists on the board only as its method entry and its answer.

Where do supervisors go?

In the author block with their affiliation, the same as any co-author. On this board the candidate is flagged as presenting author, the supervisor carries the same school affiliation, and the practice network partner appears with a second affiliation, with superscripts generated automatically.

Can the three icons be changed?

Yes. The icon slots accept any icon from the icon set, and this board uses a target, a flask and a trend line for readiness, effect and cost. Pick icons that survive being read at a metre; abstract shapes work better than literal ones at poster sizes.

Build your own in about a minute

The button below opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match your own, generate, then edit anything you like.

Make my thesis defence poster

Sources

Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked 2 September 2026.