Attitudes and attributes of pharmacists in relation to practice change – A scoping review and discussion

Abstract

3Background: Multiple barriers and facilitators to the uptake of cognitive services in pharmacy practice 4

Extending the scope of community pharmacists’ practice to patients requiring urgent care – An evaluation of a training programme using the Theoretical Domains Framework

“…Reported behaviours related to managing patients and appropriate referral (secondary outcomes) further suggest ways that community pharmacy can improve access to treatment that extends beyond existing commissioned pharmacy‐based services such as minor ailments schemes. However, situational factors including work overload, conflicting workloads, lack of equipment and concerns over insurance were cited as barriers to transfer of training suggesting practice setting characteristics remain an obstacle to implementing behaviour change, confirming previously reported findings that a lack of perceived behavioural control / ability to engage in a behaviour in a practice environment may prevent psychologically motivated and capable pharmacists from implementing an intended practice behaviour (Azjen, ; Doucette et al., ; Hopp, Sørensen, Herborg, & Roberts, ; Liaskou, White, Moss, Ratcliffe, & Cook, ; Luetsch, ; Roberts, Benrimoj, Chen, Williams, & Aslani, ).…”

“…These barriers to implementation provide further evidence that changes to attitudes and behaviours alone are not enough for practice to change, and that a focus on the individual practitioner rather than on the structural, organisational context is a recognised shortcoming of studies that only consider psychological capacity and motivation. Moreover, while not explicitly investigated in this study, a lack of public or patient awareness of pharmacists’ clinical roles (Eades et al., ), as well as uncertainty regarding the numbers of patients presenting at community pharmacies requiring urgent care, together with reported lack of work‐based support for providing services outside reimbursed dispensing (Doucette et al., ; Hopp et al., ; Liaskou et al., ; Luetsch, ; Roberts et al., ) may limit opportunities to practise urgent care. Further roll out of this type of training would need to consider these patient, structural, organisational and contextual factors `and provide resources allowing for capacity building beyond the individual level to meet (as yet unforecasted) patient demand.…”

“…otitis, red eye and some skin conditions). For such training to have an impact on patient demand for treatment of these conditions, it will be important to address both individual‐ and organisational‐level factors including lack of confidence and competence to provide new services together with low perceived behavioural control to implement training previously reported as limiting the rate of community pharmacists’ scope of practice change (Luetsch, ).…”

Using the big five inventory to evaluate the personality traits of Australian pharmacists

“…Additionally, low correlation coefficients from the multivariate regression indicate the presence of other unmeasured variables contributing to the variance in personality traits in this study. Finally, some state that the BFI may not be suitable for evaluating the personality traits of health professionals, claiming that the way it assesses the underlying facets of the trait of openness is not ideal for people whose curiosity might be technical or scientific, as opposed to artistic or aesthetic . The BFI is also primarily descriptive, it does not explain how personality traits develop .…”

The caring behaviours of Danish pharmaconomists: insight for pharmacy technician practice around the world

“…One study found a relationship between empathy and conscientiousness and agreeableness, the latter of which is comprised of ‘forgiving’ and other traits . Another found pharmacists’ attitudes towards practice change to be associated with certain personality characteristics, such as ‘openness’, Need for achievement did not explain much of caring. While the results of this study provide a good baseline of understanding pharmaconomist caring behaviours, future studies could help determine additional factors associated with higher caring abilities and determine the extent to which different types of professional and educational interventions could positively affect caring behaviours.…”