ObjectivePharmacists play a pivotal role in the health continuum, and the perceptions and expectations of physicians towards pharmacists have been reported as a key factor in the interprofessional relationship. This study aimed to elicit the perceptions and expectations of physicians towards the role of pharmacists in hospitals to clarify the level of interaction between physicians and pharmacists in hospital settings.DesignA cross-sectional survey using a self-administered questionnaire was conducted to collect data in 2016.MethodsA cross-sectional study was carried out at 20 large government hospitals in Tehran Province. Data was collected using a questionnaire consisting of four sections. It includes a section on demographic profile and three sections to measure the perceptions of physicians towards pharmacists, the expectations of physicians and their experiences with pharmacists, respectively.ResultsMore than two-thirds of physicians (67.2%) agreed that pharmacists were a reliable source of general drug information. The majority of physicians (90.6%) expected pharmacists to advise their patients about the dose and administration of their medications. Almost half of the physicians (51.6%) agreed that they were usually informed by pharmacists regarding potential problems in their prescriptions. Both senior and junior residents had the view that pharmacists would inform them if any potential problems with their prescriptions were discovered (P=0.04).ConclusionThis study demonstrated that physicians had positive view on pharmacists’ clinically defined roles and also accepted pharmacists as a valuable source of general drug information. However, the perceptions and expectations of physicians towards pharmacists did not match their real experience. Therefore, improving the awareness of physicians about the benefits of interprofessional collaboration with pharmacists seems to be a key step towards the implementation of pharmaceutical care practices in Iran.

The results show that the main barriers to PhC in Iran are the lack of skills and of appropriate regulation and environment. These main barriers are different from those mentioned in studies conducted in other countries.

Background In the past decades, economic sanctions imposed on Iran for its nuclear program. The embargo made difficulty in foreign trade and led to lack of timely access to medicines. As the internationally-led sanctions caused to the shortage of medicine there, healthcare systems need to applied the new policies for maintaining health service quality especially in pharmaceutical sector. Objectives This paper is about policies applied in Iran health system during the crisis reached its peak in 2012 as a good experience for guarantying access to pharmaceutical products. Methods Through interviewing experts and managers in pharmaceutical regulatory system, the implemented policies in targeted historical period were extracted, then quantitative data were analyzed to show the impact of the policies on the access and affordability of medicines before and after their implementation in Iran food and drug administration (IFDA). This paper tries to show strategies employed by to tackle the crisis caused by sanctions and to offer practical policies to make medicines more accessible at the time of crisis. Results In order to reduce the harmful effects of this crisis, IFDA proposed some changes at different levels ranging from organizational procedures to parliament legislations. The main achievements of IFDA were making drugs easily available are as follows, significantly reducing prices, decreasing the share of market regarding the imported medicines, facilitating the manufacture of domestic medicines, encouraging foreign investment in manufacturing drugs domestically, controlling the shortage of drugs, and finally giving financial support to all patients in general and to those patients who had problem paying for drugs in particular. Conclusion These experiences which made the Iran pharmaceutical sector survive during the international sanctions, can be considered as a good example of resilience strategies in similar situations.

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Objective Pharmaceutical expenditures have increasingly grown in the past decades, prompting policy makers to pay more and more attention to developing such strategies as generic substitution to deal with this challenging issue. Community pharmacists whose recommendations have a strong influence on consumers’ decisions can play a pivotal role in the success of the strategy of dispensing generic medicines. Considering the aforementioned issue, it is imperative to evaluate pharmacists’ perception of generic substitution alongside their perception of the roles of patients, physicians, and government in this regard. Methods A cross-sectional descriptive study involving pharmacists working in Tehran community pharmacies (2000) was performed, using a self-administrated anonymous questionnaire. Key findings A total of 1208 questionnaires were returned, which provides a response rate of 60%. According to responses, 43% of the participants believed that generic medicines are bioequivalent to branded medicines, and the majority of the respondents (71.6%) stated that they do substitution if generic medicine is available. However, more than half of the respondents do not believe in the efficacy of generic medicines. In addition, they think that patients, physicians, and government have important roles in generic substitution. The government in particular plays a pivotal role as far as implementing different pharmaceutical policies are concerned. Conclusions The results indicated that Iranian pharmacists have good insights regarding the implementation and promotion of a generic substitution strategy; thus, they need the support of patients, physicians, and government to increase the utilization of generic medicines.