Abstract

PERCEIVED BARRIERS AND EXPECTATIONS OF GENERAL PUBLIC FOR ESTABLISHING COMMUNITY PHARMACY IN PAKISTAN

Wajiha Iffat*, Sadia Shakeel, Shehla Imam, Tehseen Quds

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The current study was conducted with the aim to assess the public’s attitudes towards the community pharmacist’s role in Pakistan, to investigate the public’s use of community pharmacy, and to determine the public’s views of and expectations with community pharmacy services. Materials and Methods: This transversal study was conducted from June to Aug 2015 by adopting a pre validated questionnaire distributed to people of all ages who were willing to participate in the study. Overall, three hundred and seventeen individuals participated in the study. Descriptive statistics were used to demonstrate participants’ demographic information and their response to the questionnaire items. One way ANOVA test was executed to evaluate the association of gender, age, education, social status and occupation of participants with their response. A p value < 0.05 was considered as significant. Results: Around 70% opined that pharmacists are health professionals who know a lot about drugs but are concerned about, and committed to, caring for the public. Majority of the participants (31%) visited pharmacy to obtain prescription medications and 26% to obtain OTCs. Lack of awareness of consumers about the ability of the pharmacist to answer drug- and disease-related questions (89.39%) and awareness about the role of pharmacist (77.27%) were perceived to be the main barrier for establishment of community pharmacy. Major expectations about community pharmacist’s role included counseling about the potential interactions with other medicines (92.54%), counseling about the directions for use of medications (91.18%) and counseling about diseases (89.16%). Conclusion: It is concluded that participants showed positive attitude towards the community pharmacy practice and highlighted the need of community pharmacist in healthcare system of Pakistan. Government and non government organizations should come forward to work seriously to boost up the community pharmacy practice. It is a step toward improved pharmaceutical care practices in Pakistan and will ultimately improve the health status of our community in near future.

Keywords: Community pharmacists; expectation; barriers; Pakistan.