Evaluation of patient opinions in a pharmacy-level intervention study

Abstract

ObjectiveTo explore patients' satisfaction with their community pharmacy's services and to evaluate the effects of an intervention programme in which a trained technician organised patient education activities in the pharmacy. MethodWe surveyed patients visiting the participating pharmacies at three stages: at the start of the intervention period (0 months, T0), at the end (after 12 months, T1), and 12 months after the intervention had been completed (24 months from baseline, T2). At each stage, 500 questionnaires were distributed by each pharmacy. Setting 28 Dutch community pharmacies: 14 intervention and 14 controls. Key findingsThe response rates were 54%, 44% and 43% at T0, T1 and T2, respectively. Baseline data showed that patients reported satisfaction with helpfulness, waiting time, ease of asking questions, answers to questions, and patient leaflets provided. Around two thirds (59.5%) of the patients said they would ask a pharmacy employee questions if they were concerned about side effects of their medication. Asking questions was not reported to be difficult for most patients (88.9%). The reasons most often given for experiencing difficulties with asking questions were related to lack of privacy (16.9% of all patients), waiting time of other patients (8.8%) and busy pharmacy employees (6.7%). The most frequently reported reason for being less satisfied with the answers to questions was receiving too little information (7.5%). Our analyses showed a significant improvement only on the outcome variable ''helpfulness'' experienced by patients between 0 (T0) and 12 months (T1), and this was found to be sustained one year later (T2). ConclusionThe overall findings on patient satisfaction showed that almost two-thirds of the respondents saw the pharmacy as a source of information about medication. Community pharmacies clearly have an important role in providing such information. Lack of privacy was the most common reason for patients reporting difficulties in asking questions about medicines and this needs pharmacists' attention. Our analysis showed that the intervention had an effect on ''helpfulness'' experienced by patients, which slightly increased in the intervention period (T0-T1 differences) and appeared to have remained at the higher level one year later (T2).

Measurement of patient satisfaction with community pharmacy services: a review

“…In one study, however, high levels of patient satisfaction were reported despite sub-optimal ratings for counselling levels [39]. Another interesting observation was the high levels of baseline satisfaction reported prior to any intervention delivery [43]. High satisfaction ratings with different cognitive services were also observed in all reviewed studies.…”

“…Administration modes ranged from self completion on site [42,44,47,51], provider/researcher administered either on site (face to face interviews) [28,32], or via telephone [40,41,46], or mailed [30,34,39,43,45,[47][48][49][50]. One innovative study reported the use of trained volunteer patients as 'mystery shoppers' to assess and report their satisfaction with services provided by different health care professionals [36].…”

“…All 24 studies included in this review, focussed on patient satisfaction as an outcome measured for either general [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] (46%), intervention [39][40][41][42][43][44] (25%) or cognitive [45][46][47][48][49][50][51] (29%) services. Apart from being measured as an outcome of a service, no studies reported research aimed at exploring purely patient satisfaction.…”

“…Six studies investigated patient satisfaction with an intervention delivered by community pharmacists [39][40][41][42][43][44] of which five measured satisfaction with intervention (Table 1) while one was involved in instrument development. All but one used questionnaires developed ad hoc; usually by using suitable items from previously published questionnaires.…”

Communication with patients who are dispensed a first prescription of chronic medication in the community pharmacy

“…Compared with results of observational studies in the past, these Dutch community pharmacies increased their level of communication about drug side-effects [17,25]. Apparently, the use of a computer checklist helps to guarantee the presentation of required information items.…”