Abstract
Slovakia is a country where the purchase of OTC (over the counter) medicines outside the pharmacy is not allowed by the government. This study aimed at evaluating patients' satisfaction and acceptance of community pharmacists. Customer's behaviour and expectations influencing the purchase of prescription and OTC medicines were analyzed. A structured questionnaire having 15 multiple-choice questions was used to analyze the descriptive parameters. Data collection lasted from January to February 2014. The sample size consisted of 357 high-school educated individuals under 40 years of age. The survey showed that the prescription and OTC medicines were bought equally. The participants reported a 96.0%, 96.3% and 90.2% satisfaction rate with willingness and approach of the community pharmacist, pharmacy services and provision of drug information respectively. As for the OTC medicines, 89.5% people considered the pharmacist an expert: 88.2% purchased medicines with pharmacist's recommendation, 97.8% needed a professional counselling and 97.2% required a pharmacist's guidance. As for the prescription drugs, only 72.1% considered the pharmacist an expert: 96.3% suggested that physician's prescription was significant and 88.3% considered pharmacist's guidance in the process of selection of prescription medicines nonessential. A comprehensible and respectable conversation was highly expected in regards to both the OTC and prescription medicines.
Highlights
Two types of dispensing activities are inevitably performed in community pharmacies - dispensing of prescription medicines accompanied by professional consultation, and provision of over the counter (OTC) medicines along with advice on self-care (Pharmacy Board of Australia, 2015)
The final questionnaire is included at the end of this article. It consists of fifteen multiple-choice items addressing the following aspects: (1) socio-demographic information of surveyed participants; (2) purchase information of prescription medicines, OTC medicines and dietary supplements; (3) satisfaction with and trustworthiness towards community pharmacists in regards to pharmaceutical care provision; (4) expectations towards community pharmacists during the purchase of prescription and/or OTC medicines
The results showed that during the last 12 months, participants had purchased both OTC (31.9%) and prescription medicines (30.2%) often
Summary
Two types of dispensing activities are inevitably performed in community pharmacies - dispensing of prescription medicines accompanied by professional consultation, and provision of over the counter (OTC) medicines along with advice on self-care (Pharmacy Board of Australia, 2015). Studies report that people consider community pharmacists to be a credible and accessible source of information, in the case of minor ailments and OTC medicines. They are widely accepted as qualified health care providers and drug experts (You et al, 2011; Catic, Jusufovic, Tabakovic, 2013). Physicians are considered the most important source of information in regards to prescription medicines, good pharmaceutical counselling improves patients’ knowledge, as well as the use of medicines (Horvat, Kos, 2015). Patients’ satisfaction expresses how well the role of a pharmacist
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