The study of the pharmacists’ competence in providing the additional services to the population

Abstract

Aim. To study the competence of pharmacists when measuring blood pressure to visitors of pharmacies and substantiate the necessity for standardization of the additional service to improve the quality of service.Materials and methods. The analysis of domestic regulatory legal acts, sociological research, generalizations were used.Results. Regulatory and legal acts regarding prevention and treatment of arterial hypertension in Ukraine provides for the participation of pharmacy professionals for promotion of health knowledge among the population and identifying persons with high blood pressure. The standards of Good Pharmacy Practice specify the pharmacist’s duty to provide services in screening of patients with high-risk diseases. The questionnaire of retail pharmacists, who provide, if necessary, the additional services to consumers, has been carried out. The procedure of preparing visitors of pharmacies to blood pressure measurement and the final stage of explanation of the results and giving recommendations have been studied. The violations of the method of blood pressure measuring and the lack of knowledge of the pharmacy specialists concerning the classification of arterial hypertension by the level of blood pressure have been identified. The reasonability of placing information of the educational nature regarding measurement of blood pressure and interpretation of the results on the websites of pharmacy networks with mandatory references to official and evidence literary sources has been proven.Conclusions. The results of the survey of pharmacies regarding measurement of blood pressure for visitors have shown the lack of awareness concerning rendering the additional services in practice and explanation of the results. The necessity of standardization of the specified additional service for providing the proper level of service of the population has been determined.