Developing community pharmacy services wanted by local people: information and advice about prescription medicines

Abstract

An extended information service on prescription medicines was evaluated in four community pharmacies over a period of 11 months, including a three-month pilot phase. Written patient information leaflets (PILs) and structured verbal advice designed according to the preferences of local people were provided by the pharmacist to patients prescribed any of three study drugs -amoxycillin, atenolol or ibuprofen. A total of 1,614 PILs were issued. Data were collected from a sample of 3 11 recipients about their perception and recall of the information service. Altogether, 64 per cent remembered receiving the study leaflet and 56 per cent remembered receiving some verbal information from the pharmacist. More than 80 per cent of service recipients supported the provision of both verbal and written information by the pharmacist. In the main study period (n=203), the types of information respondents could recall receiving most frequently were when to take the medicine (67 per cent), the name of the medicine (53 per cent) and side effects (41 per cent). Sixty seven per cent (40) of those receiving amoxycillin, 61 per cent (43) taking atenolol and 38 per cent (28) taking ibuprofen recognised a side effect of their medicine given in both the leaflet and verbal advice. For all three drugs, side effects were recognised most frequently when included in both the written and verbal information. Support for this aspect of the pharmacist's extended role has been demonstrated in practice and the feasibility of service implementation is discussed.

Development and evaluation of a training program to foster the use of written drug information in community pharmacies. Part 2: evaluation

“…Written information combined with verbal counselling has been shown to increase drug knowledge recall (Morris & Halperin, 1979;Peura, Klaukka, Hannula, & Eerikainen, 1993;Livingstone et al, 1996) as well as increase compliance to therapy (Gotsch & Liguori, 1982;Myers & Calvert, 1984;Blaikie, 1999;Machuca, Espejo, Gutierrez, Machuca, & Herrera, 2003;AlSaffar, Deshmukh, Carter, & Adib, 2005). Using written drug information while counselling patients, also enhances the professional role of pharmacists, provides an opportunity for practising clinical pharmacy and allows pharmacists to fulfil their professional role in providing information to, and becoming more involved with the consumer (Dolinsky & Sogol, 1989).…”

“…There are many factors that influence readership, in particular the nature of the interaction with the healthcare professional when the information is provided to the patient (Koo et al, 2002(Koo et al, , 2003. Patients view written information as less helpful than face-to-face counselling (Raynor et al, 2004) and prefer to receive written information and verbal counselling from pharmacists (Culbertson, Arthur, Rhodes & Rhodes 1988;Livingstone, Pugh, Winn, & Williamson, 1996;Sleath & Wurst, 2002).…”

Development and evaluation of a training program to foster the use of written drug information in community pharmacies:Part 1–Development

“…Pharmacists have expressed a preference for using both modes of information provision (Kimberlin & Berardo, 1987;Schommer & Wiederholt, 1994). The combination has been shown to increase drug knowledge recall (Morris & Halperin, 1979;Peura, Klaukka, Hannula & Eerikainen, 1993;Livingstone et al, 1996) and improve compliance (Gotsch & Liguori, 1982;Myers & Calvert, 1984;Machuca, Espejo, Gutierrez, Machuca & Herrera, 2003;Al-Saffar, Desmukh, Carter & Adib, 2005), over either intervention alone.…”

“…Research has shown that consumers favour receiving written information (Lam & Krass, 1995;Livingstone, Pugh, Winn & Williamson, 1996;Sleath & Wurst, 2002) and consider an information leaflet about medicines useful (Mottram & Reed, 1997;Koo, Krass & Aslani, 2002). While some patients prefer to receive drug information from their physician (Hargie, Morrow & Woodman, 1992), others expect to receive both written and verbal medication information from pharmacists (Culbertson, Arthur, Rhodes & Rhodes, 1988;Livingstone et al, 1996).…”

How do Australian metropolitan and rural pharmacists counsel consumers with prescriptions?

“…Studies which have measured counselling rates from the consumers' perspective have shown rates ranging from 8% to 56% [18][19][20][21]. Therefore, an average counselling rate of 30% was estimated.…”