Abstract
Collaborative practice between physicians and pharmacists has a positive effect on healthcare outcomes. Understanding the local data related to this collaboration is vital in establishing efficient collaboration. Therefore, this study was designed to assess the collaborative relationships between physicians and pharmacists working in the primary healthcare centres regarding their attitudes and experiences, preferred methods of communication, perceptions related to the role of pharmacists, areas of potential further collaboration, and perceived barriers. A cross-sectional study was conducted using two parallel pretested self-administered questionnaires on a sample of 518 randomly selected physicians and pharmacists. Descriptive and comparative analyses were used in data analysis. The overall response rate was 86.3%. Although over 98% of respondents agreed that physician-pharmacist collaboration improves patient outcomes, more than half of the physicians (52.1%) and pharmacists (55.7%) had never practised collaboratively. Both groups preferred to communicate face-to-face (76.7%) or via telephone (76.5%). Both professions showed good agreement on pharmacists’ roles related to managing side effects, improving adherence, assisting in dosage adjustment, providing advice regarding drug interactions, and providing drug information to physicians. They indicated disagreements on the importance of dispensing of prescriptions and providing advice to physicians regarding modification of drug therapy. Both groups expressed overall positive perceptions of the potential for further collaboration in areas related to the clinical roles of pharmacists, which were significantly higher among those with practice experience of < 10 years and those aged < 40 years (p<0.05). The top four perceived barriers to collaborative practice were lack of time (84.1%), lack of financial compensation (76.3%), lack of face-to-face communication (68.9%), and the possible fragmentation of patient care by the involvement of multiple healthcare professionals (68.9%). The present findings provide valuable input that could be a catalyst to enhance or establish physician-pharmacist collaboration in primary healthcare settings in Kuwait.
Highlights
Collaborative practice is required due to the increased chronic disease burden, the aging population, the expansion of sophisticated therapeutic modalities, and rapidly rising healthcare costs [1]
This study was designed to assess the collaborative working relationships between primary care physicians and pharmacists in terms of their attitudes and experiences with collaborative practice, preferred methods of communication in collaborative practice, perceptions related to the professional role of pharmacists, areas of potential further collaboration, and perceived barriers to collaborative practice
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to be conducted in Kuwait to assess the collaborative working relationships between primary care physicians and pharmacists in terms of their attitudes towards and experiences with collaborative practice, preferred methods of communication in collaborative practice, perceptions related to the professional role of pharmacists, areas of potential further collaboration and perceived barriers to collaborative practice
Summary
Collaborative practice is required due to the increased chronic disease burden, the aging population, the expansion of sophisticated therapeutic modalities, and rapidly rising healthcare costs [1]. The provision of safe and effective patient care needs multiple healthcare professionals to collaborate efficiently with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. There is consensus that interprofessional collaboration interventions can improve healthcare processes and patient outcomes. This is especially important in the collaborative relationship between pharmacists and physicians [1]. Pharmacists have been recognized as crucial members of such collaborative practice models due to the increasing complexity of medication therapies, the cost of medication-related morbidity, and the increasing costs of healthcare, which underscore the need for effective working relationships between pharmacists and physicians to improve patient care [3]
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