Satisfaction towards the services provided by the community pharmacist in north-west India: A qualitative exploratory study

Abstract

Introduction: Patient satisfaction is an indicator in identifying and assessing the patient health-related needs, it is an important factor in determining the health care facilitates being delivered to the patients. The Community Pharmacist-led quality of services can be accessed through patient-reported outcomes (PROs). A cross-sectional survey was conducted to assess the level of client/patient satisfaction towards the services provided by the Community Pharmacist and factors affecting it. Methods: A descriptive questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted for a period of 3 months targeting general community adults who visit community pharmacy settings. Well-trained student pharmacists collected data from the subjects through an interview and the statistical analysis was done using SPSS v 14.Results: A total of 314 participants were included in the study with a mean age of 24.39 years and standard deviation of 9.27 years. A higher number of participants were poorly satisfied (39.5%) with the quality of patient counseling; only fewer (2.2%) participants marked the quality of patient counseling delivered by the pharmacist as excellent. Level of satisfaction was higher for the male participants as compared to female participants, with an adjusted odds ratio of 2.541 at 95% CI 1.221-5.286 with a significant p-value of 0.017. Conclusion: This paper provides an overview of the quality of services provided by Community Pharmacist in India. There is an immense need to organize the continuing education programs for the Community Pharmacist by employing social and administrative pharmacy tools to improve the services.

A cross-sectional assessment of patient satisfaction with community pharmacy services in Lebanon: The IMPHACT-LB study

“…The majority perceived the pharmacist as a medication expert, health counselor, health promoter, and patient-centered practitioner, reflected by the enhanced satisfaction scores among those who reported receiving advice on lifestyle habits from their pharmacist. These results underscore the importance of pharmacists educating their clients about nonpharmacological options for treatment (Kang et al, 2017) and align with previous findings showing decreased patient satisfaction with pharmacists who did not offer guidance on non-pharmacological approaches to managing diseases (Chhabra et al, 2019).…”

Assessing Patient Satisfaction with the Service Quality Provided in Community Pharmacies: Khartoum Locality, Sudan

“…However, there was disagreement with a study conducted in India showing that unemployed patients were less satisfied in community pharmacy services. 18 Generally, illiterate patients were associated with lowest satisfaction ranks in consultation and service delivery qualities as you can see in their mean ranks 164.52 and 159.37 respectively (Table 3). They were highly frustrated in pharmacist's advices about proper medication use than those of secondary (adjusted p-value=0.041) and those of primary (adjusted p-value=0.023) (Table 4).…”

“…There is a consistency with a 2019 study established in North-West India showing that higher number of patients (39.5%) were dissatisfied in pharmacist's counselling. 18 It was found that the lowest level of satisfaction in consultation is associated with 'explaining on the possible side effects, and telling the precautions (e.g. activities to avoid.)…”

“…17 In addition to those factors waiting time, pharmacy setting and facilities, convenience, and availability of medications have been stated to affect patient's satisfaction level in pharmacy services. 18 Most of reports regarding patients' satisfaction of pharmacist performance are positive and reflect that they are the drug experts. 19 Nevertheless, satisfaction is not enough for a good health care promotion.…”

Role of Community Pharmacy in Helping Patients and Public in the Society

“…Accompanied with day to day activities the community pharmacies in India have made them prove as significant contributors to public health. As observed by Chhabra et al (2019), community pharmacies are considered as the independent craftsperson to the public health service by dispensing medicines and giving advice. It also can be analyzed by the findings that a number of key policies have outlined the areas pharmacists that should be advanced further in order to serve better public health services.…”