Health care consumers’ perspectives on pharmacist integration into private general practitioner clinics in Malaysia: a qualitative study

Abstract

BackgroundPharmacists are considered medication experts but are underutilized and exist mainly at the periphery of the Malaysian primary health care team. Private general practitioners (GPs) in Malaysia are granted rights under the Poison Act 1952 to prescribe and dispense medications at their primary care clinics. As most consumers obtain their medications from their GPs, community pharmacists’ involvement in ensuring safe use of medicines is limited. The integration of a pharmacist into private GP clinics has the potential to contribute to quality use of medicines. This study aims to explore health care consumers’ views on the integration of pharmacists within private GP clinics in Malaysia.MethodsA purposive sample of health care consumers in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, were invited to participate in focus groups and semi-structured interviews. Sessions were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim and thematically analyzed using NVivo 10.ResultsA total of 24 health care consumers participated in two focus groups and six semi-structured interviews. Four major themes were identified: 1) pharmacists’ role viewed mainly as supplying medications, 2) readiness to accept pharmacists in private GP clinics, 3) willingness to pay for pharmacy services, and 4) concerns about GPs’ resistance to pharmacist integration. Consumers felt that a pharmacist integrated into a private GP clinic could offer potential benefits such as to provide trustworthy information on the use and potential side effects of medications and screening for medication misadventure. The potential increase in costs passed on to consumers and GPs’ reluctance were perceived as barriers to integration.ConclusionThis study provides insights into consumers’ perspectives on the roles of pharmacists within private GP clinics in Malaysia. Consumers generally supported pharmacist integration into private primary health care clinics. However, for pharmacists to expand their capacity in providing integrated and collaborative primary care services to consumers, barriers to pharmacist integration need to be addressed.

A qualitative study exploring professional pharmacy services offered by community pharmacies in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia

“…In Malaysia, the public had yet to be comfortable with the idea that pharmacists' role extends beyond providing advices and dispensing medicines behind the pharmacy counter . Nevertheless, this apparently did not stop community pharmacists in the country from offering extended professional pharmacy services.…”

Actual or Potential Extended Services Performed by Malaysian Community Pharmacists, Perceptions and Barriers Towards It’s Performance: A Systematic Review

“…This review reveals some actual or potential extended services performed in the community pharmacy practice and it reflects a tendency among CPs to transform their current practice towards more patient-oriented services [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Such patient-oriented services noted were face to face counselling [6][7][8][9][10][11], treating minor ailments [8], health promotion activities [6,8] and screening for drug-related problems [8].…”

“…However, this review reveals that CPs have potential to extend their services towards more patient-oriented [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], and enhance their image as a healthcare professional. This review indicates some perceptions towards the actual or potential extended services performed in the community pharmacy settings.…”

“…The texts involved a cross-sectional survey with semi-structured interview (n=1), cross-sectional survey (n=4), semi-structured interview (n=1) and focus group discussion (n=2). It is noted that the texts were assessing health promotion activities in community pharmacy settings and its barriers [6], GPs' perceptions of CPs' actual or potential extended services [7,8], CPs' knowledge and perception of actual or potential extended services [9,10], customers' perceptions of CPs' roles to prevent and manage major disease [11] and GPs' perception of integrating pharmacists into private primary health care clinics [12,13].…”

Starz-DRP as a Triaging Tool for Community Pharmacists: Perspectives and Expectations of Stakeholders

“…Therefore, GPs possess lack of confidence and trust with CPs to take responsibilities to act as an advisor to self-care customers [20]. Furthermore, CPs are also addressing a few barriers to their performance as a primary health care provider which are lack of training, time to spend with customers, reimbursement for their additional services, and appropriate framework for performing extended services [21]. As a result, it is noted that most of the stakeholders point out that CPs are paying particular attention to perform business-oriented services rather than patient-oriented services.…”