Community pharmacy practice in Pakistan

Abstract

Objectives: This study was planned to determine the extent to which the role of a pharmacists is established in community pharmacies in Pakistan and to determine the need of qualified and experienced pharmacists in provision of healthcare at these medical stores or so called community pharmacies. Materials and Methods: A structured questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of 175 attendants at various medical stores located in different areas of Karachi with a response rate of 90.28%. Questionnaire consisted of 24 closed ended questions whose consistency and reliability were determined by Cronbach's alpha. Statistical analysis were done using SPSS (v.16.0) Results: The result shows that the average age of pharmacy attendant lies between 21 and 30 years. Only 9.49% of attendants have professional pharmacy education. It was noted that only 22.6% check prescriber signature before dispensing prescription, which is quite a low as compared with standard practice. Interestingly 57.6% attendants think that presence of qualified pharmacy at medical stores does not make any difference in the efficacy and the business of medical stores. Conclusion: This study concludes that the current status of community pharmacy practice is below par. There is a need to involve more pharmacists at community level and develop awareness programs to counter patients' routine drug issues and reducing the burden of disease from society.

What Do the Hospital Pharmacists Think about the Quality of Pharmaceutical Care Services in a Pakistani Province? A Mixed Methodology Study

“…Both phases of this study identified almost similar findings. The study identified that there was a lack of provision of pharmaceutical care services to the patients in Pakistan, since the patients did not report the occurrence of adverse drug reactions to the pharmacists that supported the study conducted in Karachi [14], according to which majority of pharmacists stated that the patients are not informing them about adverse drug reaction events. The present study also revealed that there was a lack of communication among hospital pharmacists and physicians in relation to drug information that was consistent with a previous qualitative study carried out in Punjab Province of Pakistan [15].…”

A qualitative study exploring perceptions and attitudes of community pharmacists about extended pharmacy services in Lahore, Pakistan

“…The overall process of prescription handling, history taking and medication counselling is either limited, only few pharmacies offer, or seldom present in majority of pharmacies [ 22 , 65 ]. Provision of proper records of patients in integrated manner should be maintained and made mandatory by the government at each community pharmacy to serve the society in a better way [ 25 ].…”

“…Generally, majority of community pharmacists are unaware of the concept of extended pharmacy services [ 24 ]. There is lack of awareness in public about the role of community pharmacist as well as the collaboration among the healthcare professionals, as pharmacist-physician interaction is not there in appreciable extent [ 25 ].…”