Underlying factors influencing community pharmacies business in low- to medium-developed markets: a societal perspective

Abstract

Objectives To identify (1) critical local factors affecting community pharmacy performance and (2) items that are important in assessing community pharmacy performance. Methods A cross-sectional survey based on the opinions of the pharmacists involved in managing a community pharmacy in Iran at least for 3 years by the time of the study was conducted, in 2014. The questionnaire was anonymous and self-administered and consisted of three parts, which constructed to address research questions. Descriptive and factor analysis were performed using spss (16.0.0). The size of the effect of each dimension was investigated by lisrel (8.54). Key findings Based on the respondents' opinions, product (0.89), leadership (0.86) and promotion (0.82) were the three most influencing intra-organisational dimensions, and price (0.37) was the least important one. Regard to extra-organisational factors, the highest and lowest scores were obtained for participants (0.86) and regulatory issues (0.58) respectively. Among performance assessment items, clients' results (0.76) and society results (0.22) set at the first and last priority respectively. Conclusions Authors believe that this study provides decision makers and researchers with a comprehensive collection of factors affecting the community pharmacy area, which after minor modifications based on local issues is applicable in countries that are similar to Iran with regard to the level of the reprofessionalisation of community pharmacies.