Opinion of medical and pharmaceutical professionals on the quality of pharmaceutical care for patients with diabetes mellitus in the Novosibirsk region: a comparative sociological study

Abstract

Relevance. Patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) in the Russian Federation have the right to receive free medications. Despite this, some patients with DM experiencing difficulties at various stages of preferential treatment are forced to purchase medications at their own expense. Medical workers (MW) who receive patients and pharmaceutical workers (PW) of preferential dispensing points (PDP), who dispense drugs on preferential terms and provide pharmaceutical information (PI) to patients, are of considerable interest as competent sources of opinion about the quality of the organization of drug provision.Objective. To conduct a comparative sociological study of the organization of PDP for patients with DM in the Novosibirsk region (NSR) using the method of questioning MW and PW.Materials and methods. The materials used were the MW and PW questionnaires developed by the authors. During the study, the following methods were used: sociological survey (questioning), content analysis, comparative analysis, induction, and logical method.Results and discussion. 71% of MW must deal with various difficulties when issuing preferential prescriptions for drugs. These include: absence of drugs in the preferential list (29%), funding limit (29%), and absence of drugs in the PDP (35%). An average level of compliance in taking medications by patients with DM according to the MW was revealed, with a low interest in PI according to PDP workers. 45% of PW experience difficulties when conducting PI of patients with DM. The majority of PW (88%) consider the range of PDP in which they work to be rich in international nonproprietary names, trade names, and release forms of both oral hypoglycemic drugs and insulins.Conclusions. The results obtained allow us to conclude that the drug provision system for patients with DM in the NSR needs to be optimized. Based on the results of the survey, the main directions of optimization can be identified: increasing the availability of drugs in the PDP and increasing the competence of the PDP’s PW through the development of additional training materials and activities.