Community Pharmacists’ Attitudes Toward Collaboration With Physicians

Abstract

Objective: Healthcare providers play a key role in reducing medication errors and improving patient care, especially for those who suffer with chronic diseases. This study aims to assess pharmacist attitudes toward collaborative practice in northeastern Iran. Methods:A face-to-face survey was offered to a sample of 124 pharmacists in Mashhad, Iran, and some other cities of the Razavi Khorasan province. This survey assessed the following elements of community pharmacists' collaborative behaviour: "interactional determinants," "environmental determinants," and "pharmacist determinants." Results were analyzed to determine how pharmacists' attitudes and other variables would influence their collaborative behaviour. Results:The survey response rate was 100%. Principal component analysis revealed that the attitudes towards collaboration instrument for pharmacists (ATCI-P) in our sample consisted of two factors: interactional determinants and pharmacist determinants, both with high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.83). The lowest and the highest scores in the interactional determinants domain were 19 and 35, respectively. The higher attitudes toward collaboration were obtained in the capital city, Mashhad, rather than in towns (P-value = 0.006). Multiple linear regression analysis of the complete model was significant (R = 0.38, P-value = 0.004). The age and city/community size were also found to be significant predictors of collaboration behavior (B = 0.300, p = 0.002 and B = 0.259, p = 0.004, respectively). Conclusion:The community pharmacists in Razavi Khorasan, Iran, have a profound attitude toward collaboration with physicians, and their collaborative behaviour is influenced by the age and community size.

A Impact of a Pharmacist-Led Educational Intervention on Quality of Life Among Patients With Asthma

“…Patients with asthma can suffer from critical health problems such as reduced quality of life (QoL) and increased risk of death [3][4][5]. Of those approaches to improve QoL among asthma patients, pharmacistled educational interventions in collaboration with physicians (e.g., face-to-face or email counseling providing information of asthma, medication management, and lifestyle changes) have been demonstrated to be applicable to improve safety, effectiveness of treatment outcomes, and QoL of patients with long-term medical condition [6,7], such as asthma [8][9][10]. However, those approaches are not widely implemented across the health-care system in Vietnam.…”