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Objective: To assess the psychometric properties of the PSPSQ 2.0, an instrument to measure patient satisfaction with pharmacist services in a clinical setting. Methods: An observational study design was conducted in Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia from February to April 2016. Permission to reuse the questionnaires was granted before testing of the same. Forward and backtranslation was conducted prior to the study for evaluating the equivalence of meaning between the original source and target texts across culture. The questionnaires were administered randomly to participants who have their subsequent visits with a pharmacist at any public or private hospital in Ipoh. Test-retest was carried out in order to evaluate the stability of test over time using Intra-Class Coefficient. Reliability of questionnaire was tested using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Collected data were analyzed for their consistency and validity using confirmatory factor analysis. Results: There were 130 respondents for the first time point and 80 respondents during retest. About 60% of the respondents were female; 51.5% were aged 47 and above; mostly Chinese and almost half of the respondents worked in the government sector. The ICC for most items tested for intrarater (test-retest) reliability was good with a majority of items exhibiting coefficients > 0.80. Conclusion: The results suggest that the PSPSQ 2.0 can serve as a reliable and valid instrument to measure patient satisfaction with clinical services provided by pharmacists.

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes concerning antibiotic use and resistance among members of the local community in Pulau Pinang, Malaysia. The study was conducted among 326 residents of the Jelutong district, Pulau Pinang state, from August to October 2013. A self-administered five-part questionnaire was used for the data collection. The respondents exhibited inadequate knowledge of antibiotics in general. Approximately 80% of them did not know the indications for antibiotic use, while 76% believed that antibiotics were useful in terms of resolving viral fever. Additionally, 52.6% believed that antibiotics could be used to treat all types of infections. Inadequate knowledge of antibiotic resistance was also evident among the respondents, since 72.9% of them did not agree that resistant bacteria can spread from human or animal to human, while 32% were unaware that bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics. More than 60% of respondents admitted that they took antibiotics in order to accelerate their recovery from illness, while 34.8% claimed that they only stopped taking antibiotics when they felt better. The findings hence indicate that most respondents had poor knowledge and attitudes concerning antibiotic use and resistance, which suggests the need for more community-based educational campaigns designed to improve the public’s knowledge and attitudes regarding antibiotics.

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Aims: This article examines the outputs of pharmaceutical education with the development of the pharmacy profession and how that affects pharmaceutical innovation. It also discusses different models of collaboration between the academic and pharmaceutical industry in order to achieve a healthy collaboration between the stakeholders. Methods: The perspective, experiences and insights of educators from various backgrounds, origin and educational levels were sought regarding the role of pharmacy education in providing pharmaceutical research and development workforce. Results: Many countries around the world are currently undertaking major reforms in pharmacy education due to the changing landscape of health and healthcare delivery. These reforms must be accompanied by robust systems to assure that the quality of educational structures, processes and outcomes will produce competent pharmacy graduates in the future. It is also considered imperative that pharmacy academic institutions should establish collaboration with the drug development units, the pharmaceutical industry and government agencies for sustainability and positive research outcomes. Conclusion: Shortcomings in pharmacy curricula need to be addressed and the authors have proposed the ‘TARGET’ approach for the development of integrated pharmacy curriculum to substantially contribute to pharmaceutical research and development.