Current status, challenges and the way forward for clinical pharmacy service in Ethiopian public hospitals

Abstract

BackgroundClinical pharmacy service has evolved steadily over the past few decades and is now contributing to the ‘patient care journey’ at all stages. It is improving the safety and effectiveness of medicines and has made a significant contribution to the avoidance of medication errors. In Ethiopia, clinical pharmacy service is in its initial phase, being started in July 2013. This study therefore aimed at assessing the status, challenges and way forward of clinical pharmacy service in the country.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted in six regional states and one city- administration in September 2014. A total of 51 hospitals were included in the study. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed for data collection.ResultsA total of 160 pharmacy graduates, and 51 pharmacy heads participated in the study. Internal Medicine and Pediatric wards were the major wards where the graduates provide clinical pharmacy service. Almost 94% of the new graduates were found to be involved in clinical pharmacy service, but 47% of them rated their service as poor. The overall satisfaction of the graduates was close to 36%. Thirteen hospitals discontinued and two hospitals not even initiated the service largely due to shortage of pharmacists and lack of management support. About 44% of the surveyed hospitals documented the clinical pharmacy service provided using either developed or adopted formats. Lack of awareness by the medical fraternity, high attrition rate, lack of support from the management as well as from the health care team, readiness of the graduates to deliver the service, and shortage of pharmacists were identified by the key informants as the major stumbling block to deliver clinical pharmacy service.ConclusionClinical pharmacy service is initiated in most of the surveyed hospitals and a large proportion of the graduates were involved in the service. Although there is a great enthusiasm to promote clinical pharmacy service in the surveyed hospitals, efforts made to institutionalize the service is minimal. Thus, concerted efforts need to be exerted to promote the service through organizing awareness forums as well as revisiting the curriculum.

Attitudes, Opportunities, and Challenges for Clinical Pharmacy Services in Mizan-Tepi University Teaching Hospital, Southwest Ethiopia: Health Care Providers’ Perspective

“…is study also reflected a shortage of pharmacy workforce and staff turnover, absence of a follow-up from responsible bodies, and a lack of enough salaries and incentives for health care providers as the challenges for the clinical pharmacy services in MTUTH. Similar findings were also reported in earlier studies conducted in Ethiopia [5,24] and elsewhere in Asia [13]. Hence, the hospital leadership should look into the possibilities of recruiting more health care providers and training of more professionals to render…”

Enhancing pharmacists’ role in developing countries to overcome the challenge of antimicrobial resistance: a narrative review

“…These studies are based on pharmacists’ reports from a variety of developing countries including those in Asia [ 23 – 26 ], Africa [ 27 , 28 ], South America [ 29 ] and the Middle-East [ 30 – 32 ]. These results highlight that challenges exist in both community [ 23 – 26 , 29 , 30 ] and hospital [ 27 , 28 , 31 ] provision of pharmaceutical care services. The major barriers to the delivery of comprehensive pharmacy services include the shortage of pharmacists, the lack of pharmaceutical care training programs and institutional obstacles.…”

“…There are numerous challenges and barriers faced by pharmacists in developing countries to implement and maintain sustainable pharmaceutical care services [ 23 , 27 , 30 ]. Most developing countries are struggling with a shortage of pharmacists [ 27 , 28 , 31 , 32 , 43 ], inadequate education and training for pharmacists [ 24 , 25 , 27 , 28 , 30 , 32 ], and support from other health care professionals [ 23 – 25 , 28 , 30 , 32 ]. Even though pharmacists from developing countries show great enthusiasm to promote and to devote themselves to the provision of pharmaceutical care services in their countries [ 27 ], efforts made to institutionalize pharmaceutical care services is minimal in many developing countries [ 27 , 45 , 47 ].…”

Barriers and facilitators to hospital pharmacists’ engagement in medication safety activities: a qualitative study using the theoretical domains framework

“…In addition, government recognition and supervision of hospital pharmacists’ clinical services have been cited as a main driving factor, and participants perceived these services should not have been confined to few settings and national endorsement of these services have been found to be necessary. Bilal et al [ 45 ] have also confirmed that Ethiopian graduate pharmacists are very much enthusiastic to promote clinical pharmacy service but the challenge is the minimal effort made at the level of institutions.…”