Self-efficacy of community pharmacists and associated factors in counselling to support self-medication in Japan: A crosssectional study

Abstract

Background: In 2016, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare established the Health Support Pharmacy Certification System. The certification requirements include a track record of counseling regarding the use of over-the-counter drugs (OTC). Therefore, pharmacists must increase their self-efficacy for counseling. Objectives: To determine pharmacists’ self-efficacy for OTC counseling and related factors. Methods: A web-based survey was conducted. Multivariate analysis was conducted to test the relationship among the mean scores of self-efficacy for OTC counselling for 25 symptoms, pharmacist attributes, years of work, psychosocial factor, job satisfaction, and level of trust from the community and patients. Results: We received responses from 250 people. The overall self-efficacy was 5.8 (SD= 2.4) but varied depending on the symptoms. Self-efficacy was relatively high for allergic symptoms (6.9), cold/influenza (6.9), and constipation (7.1), but relatively low for contraceptive drugs (3.8), palpitation/shortness of breath (4.6), and abnormal taste/smell (4.2). In bivariate analysis, items related to self-efficacy included “age” (Spearman correlation= 0.276, P<0.001), “academic background” (-0.208, P=0.001), “number of years of work” (0.267, P<0.001), “level of trust from the community” (0.155, P=0.014), “level of trust from patients” (0.271, P<0.001), “job satisfaction” (0.236, P<0.001), “role clarity” (0.181, P=0.004), and “positive challenge at work” (0.271, P<0.001). Multivariate analysis indicated that the number of years of work (Standardizing Coefficient: 0.22), trust from patients (0.13), and positive challenge at work (0.25) had a positive effect on self-efficacy. Conclusions: Years of work, recognition that they are trusted by patients, and positive challenge at work were important for the counseling self-efficacy of pharmacists. These results provide implications for pharmacy management and lifelong education strategies to promote self-efficacy in pharmacist counseling.

Enablers and Barriers to Effective Communication about Drug Information: A Qualitative Study

“…The research results also showed pharmacists with higher work experience can communicate more effectively. Qudah et al (2021) and Yorimoto et al (2022) state that observing and practicing questioning skills in work experience are needed to increase self-efficacy related to health communication. Pharmacy staff also tend to be more confident in counseling on the usual topics they often provide.…”

“…When a patient is recognized and comforted in a medical consultation, the patient's anxiety will decrease, while positive emotions such as selfesteem and optimism will increase (Jiang, 2017). In addition, patient trust has a positive effect on the self-efficacy of pharmacists in charge of conveying health information (Yorimoto et al, 2022).…”

“…In addition to providing prescription drug counseling, pharmacists also should provide information regarding the use of non-prescription drugs (Cavaco et al, 2017) because patients out there massively continue using non-prescription drugs. Thus, pharmacy counseling is needed to achieve safe self-medication (Veiga et al, 2021;Yla -Rautio et al, 2020;Yorimoto et al, 2022). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of pharmacists in educating patients and the public about health protocols, diseases, symptoms, and treatment of COVID-19, also fighting hoaxes by providing facts based on scientific evidence increased (Widayanti et al, 2022).…”