Magnitude of client satisfaction and its associated factors with outpatient pharmacy service at Dubti General Hospital, Afar, North East Ethiopia: A cross sectional study

Abstract

Introduction In Ethiopia the pharmacy service has had several gaps among these were low patient satisfaction, and poor availability of essential pharmaceuticals. In addition, previous studies showed variation in magnitude of client satisfaction, and there is no previous study in the study area. Therefore, the aim of the study was to determine client satisfaction with outpatient pharmacy service and associated factors among adult clients at Dubti General Hospital in Afar, Ethiopia. Methods A hospital based cross sectional study design was employed from February 1 to March 30, 2020 at Dubti General Hospital. Participants were selected by systematic random sampling method. Bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression was computed to assess statistical association between the outcome variable, and independent variables. AOR with 95% CI were used to show statistical Significance at P <0.05. Results The overall satisfaction towards outpatient pharmacy service was 165(40.5%). Regarding associated factors, service payment insured through their workplace was positively associated with satisfaction (AOR = 3.178, 95% CI: 1.294–7.80) where as availability of some medications (AOR = 0.393, 95% CI: 0.208–0.741), unfair medication cost (AOR = 0.613, 95% CI: 0.607–0.910), and lack of organized pharmacy work flow (AOR = 0.105, 95% CI: 0.049–0.221) were negatively associated with clients’ satisfaction. Conclusion The clients’ satisfaction in this study is low that warrants immediate corrective measures. Corrective measures should be taken based on identified gaps such as improving drug availability, pharmacy work flow, and cost of medications.

Patient satisfaction and associated factor at red cross pharmacies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

“…Patient satisfaction with interaction with the pharmacist in this study was, 62.8%. This is also better than patient satisfaction in some public hospital pharmacies in Ethiopia [21,26].But it was lower than other public hospital in Ethiopia [21,23,25]. The reason could be patients may rate differently on different days about their interaction with the pharmacist.…”

“…While 60.4% is a considerable proportion of satisfied patients, it also indicates that there is room for improvement. The satisfaction level was better than most pharmacy service of hospitals in Ethiopian [23][24][25][26]. It was also better than some other African countries pharmacies, Tanzania (46%) [20].…”

“…In Ethiopia, some studies had been conducted on the satisfaction of client with pharmacy service in public hospitals [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. However, there is scarce documentation of opinion of patient satisfaction towards community pharmacy service.…”

Dispensation of outpatient hospital medicines by hospital only versus hospital-community pharmacies collaboration: a cross-sectional study and survey of patient’s satisfaction

“…The outpatient units of the hospital pharmacy services developed specialized pharmaceutical care for outpatients who require treatment with hospital-dispensed drugs, including validation of the prescription, comprehensive monitoring of treatment, and direct information to patients about correct administration of the medication, how to improve compliance, and how to manage possible interactions, adverse drug events, or toxicities. Consistently providing high-quality pharmaceutical services and medication management, particularly in patients with chronic conditions, has been shown to be a cornerstone of patient satisfaction and an essential factor to ensure adherence with medication ( 2–4 ). Adherence to chronic treatments is challenging and has stimulated health care providers to devise differentiated service delivery models to decentralize chronic medicine distribution at health care facilities ( 5–7 ).…”

An Assessment of Outpatient Satisfaction with Hospital Pharmacy Quality and Influential Factors in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…As far as we know from the literature through preliminary searching the Pubmed database, there have been limited studies in Asia [ 15 , 16 , 17 ], and most have been conducted in Ethiopia [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. According to the studies conducted in Ethiopia, nearly half of the patients were unsatisfied with the pharmaceutical care services in the specified hospitals [ 18 , 20 ], and the uncomfortable private counseling areas and waiting areas were negatively associated with patient satisfaction [ 19 ].…”