Abstract
Background: Medication counseling is important to improve qualify of pharmaceutical care, but there are lack of studies to investigate satisfied counseling practice in community pharmacies. Purpose: This study was to investigate current medication counseling provided by community pharmacists. Method: Questionnaires to assess medication counseling practices were mailed to nationwide 1,269 community pharmacists who were Sookmyung Women's University alumni. Result: One hundred sixty five pharmacists were responded to the questionnaires (response rate 13.63%). 16.8% of them all respondents had counseling room in their pharmacies. 75% and 29.9% of respondents provided patient counseling always for new and refilled prescriptions, respectively. Counseling was provided primarily by verbal, but especially for drug name, usage and storage, it was provided in written concurrently. 31.1% of respondents was satisfied with counseling practices by themselves, and a major barrier of unsatisfied counseling was lack of time in 64.6% of respondents. Majorities of respondents (66.3% and 76.3%) spent 1-3 minutes and <1 minute, for new prescription and refilled prescription, respectively. Approximate 99% of respondents presented necessity of standardized patient counseling information for drugs and 97.6% responded that quality of patient counseling would be improved by using software containing counseling information. Old respondent group had higher accumulative patient counseling practice scores and pharmacy owner group took much time for counseling, resulting in higher scores too. Conclusion: This study showed that qualified patient counseling practice has not been reached in community pharmacies. Much more discussion to seek ways to improve the quality would be necessary.
