Public’ Perception, Awareness, Expectations and Experiences towards the Role of Community Pharmacists in Quetta City, Pakistan

Abstract

Aim:The study is aimed to assess public perception, awareness, expectations and experiences towards the role of community pharmacists (CPs) in Quetta City, Pakistan. Methods: This was a questionnairebased, cross-sectional survey. Keeping the aim of the study in mind, a questionnaire was developed by the research team through mutual consensus, experience sharing and extensive literature review. By using an online calculator, 423 respondents were approached conveniently for the data collection. The SPSS v.20.0 was used for data coding and analysis. Based on the objectives of the study, descriptive statistics were applied for data analysis. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 30.61±9.95 and males dominated the group (318, 75.2%). Eighty-one percent of the respondents agreed that CPs provide consultation on how medicine works, identify and prevent errors and are good in explaining things to their level of understanding. Nearly 70% of the respondents expected CPs to take personal responsibility for resolving drug-related problems, to educate them about the appropriate use of medicines and to monitor the response of drug therapy. All respondents were positive when they were asked about their expectations from the CPs. Respondents agreed that CPs are a reliable source of drug information and are important healthcare professionals (80.4 and 77.3% respectively). Counseling was endorsed by 60% of the respondents while CPs were held responsible for resolving drug problems. Conclusion: Although the study findings revealed certain limitations, study respondents had positive attitudes, experiences and constructive expectations towards CPs. The findings also indicated consumer preferences for the evolution of community pharmacist professional services in Pakistan.

A cross-sectional assessment of patient satisfaction with community pharmacy services in Lebanon: The IMPHACT-LB study

“…Internationally, numerous studies have looked into patient attitudes and satisfaction with community pharmacies (Gold & Wooldridge, 1995;Kamei et al, 2001;Cerulli, 2002;Mera, 2002;Cavaco et al, 2005;Wirth et al, 2010;El Hajj et al, 2011;Khojah, 2019;Khayyat et al, 2021), showing the importance of factors such as the location of the community pharmacy, the promptness of services, and the expertise of the pharmacist in the assessment of customer satisfaction with community pharmacy services. While accessibility is the primary concern in developing countries (El Hajj et al, 2011;Kamran et al, 2020), developed countries prioritise patient satisfaction as an essential indicator when evaluating healthcare system quality (Gold & Wooldridge, 1995;Kassam et al, 2012). Most Middle Eastern populations believe that the primary responsibility of a pharmacist should be to dispense medications rather than offer advice or information (Mera, 2002;Wazaify et al, 2008;El Hajj et al, 2011;Alssageer et al, 2021;Matar et al, 2021;Khayyat et al, 2021).…”