Prevalence and Usage of Printed and Electronic Drug References and Patient Medication Records in Community Pharmacies in Malaysia

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the availability and usage of printed and electronic references and Patient Medication Record in community pharmacy. It was conducted for over 3 months from 15 January to 30 April 2007. Ninety-three pharmacies participated. Structured questionnaires were mailed to community pharmacies. Six weeks later a reminder was sent to all non responders, who were given another six weeks to return the completed questionnaire. Outcomes were analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi-square test of independence. Almost all the pharmacies (96.8%) have at least Monthly Index of Medical Specialties (MIMS) while 78.5% have at least MIMS ANNUAL in their stores. Only about a third (31.2%) of the pharmacies were equipped with online facilities of which the majority referred to medical websites (88.9%) with only a minority (11.1%) referring to electronic journals. More than half (59.1%) of the pharmacists kept Patient Medication Record profiles with 49.1% storing it in paper, 41.8% electronically and 9.1% in both printed and electronic versions. In general, prevalence and usage of electronic references in community pharmacies were rather low. Efforts should be increased to encourage wider usage of electronic references and Patient Medication Records in community pharmacies to facilitate pharmaceutical care.

Drug information‐seeking behaviours of physicians, nurses and pharmacists: A systematic literature review

“…Also, Individual characteristics , which includes factors like insufficient knowledge regarding sources and a lack of searching skills , ranked first as barriers for pharmacists but last for physicians. These barriers were frequently mentioned in relation to the Internet (Burgess et al, 2004; Hennigen et al, 2009; Usir et al, 2012; Wong et al, 2009; Zehnder et al, 2004), possibly contributing to their low usage. A systematic review by Maclure and Stewart (2016) found that pharmacists want or need more digital literacy training, however recommendations from individual studies lack baseline data and are not current, quantifiable, measurable or specific.…”

“…This is likely because Kostagiolas et al studied hospital pharmacists but half of the articles on pharmacists included in this review studied community pharmacists solely. The lack of Internet access by community pharmacists has been suggested by several studies (Al-Farsi et al, 2014;Burgess et al, 2004;McCaw et al, 2008;Usir et al, 2012).…”

“…Of the five pharmacist articles which cited this, four are community pharmacist groups and one includes both community and hospital pharmacists. This suggests that source availability is an important factor for community pharmacists and that there may be a lack of availability to DI sources by them, as supported by the community pharmacist articles (Asmelashe Gelayee et al, 2017;Burgess et al, 2004;Usir et al, 2012;Zehnder et al, 2004) which cited unavailability of sources as a barrier.…”

Primary Health Care: Roles of Community Pharmacists in Low- and Middle-Income Countries—A Systematic Review

“…44 Only one of the studies described the utility of technology in patient records management. 107 In other studies, telehealth was employed in type 2 diabetic patients 96 and during the COVID-19 pandemic for patients with epilepsy (PWE). 60 The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for atopic dermatitis was described in a South African study.…”

“…36,43,45,53,54,57,65,71,79 Provider-initiated interventions such as task-shifting, the use of technology and the rearrangement of physical structures in the pharmacy to improve work ow and ergonomics have been recommended by other studies. 33,64,86,88,107,117 Providing mandatory continuous professional development by regulatory and professional bodies to community help keep abreast of the current issues, as related to practice, was advocated in the other included studies. 32,36,40,40,50,56,70,71,73,82,84,86,94,101,102,104,105,112,114,118 Only one study mentioned the integration of CAM into the undergraduate pharmacy curriculum.…”