(Current Challenges and Updates in Pharmacy Education and Research)

A pseudo-customer study to evaluate the community pharmacist’s assessment, management and advice giving provided to pregnant women complaining of cough in United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Not scheduled

20m

كلية الصيدلة

Recorded poster Conference Trak Two

Speakers

Khalid AL Kubaissi (assistant professor)Dr Sanah Hasan ( Associate Professor, Department of Clinical Sciences, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Ajman University, Ajman, United Arab Emirates)

Description

Background: There is a growing evidence for the use of pseudo-customer for the evaluation of community pharmacist’s disease management, counseling and advice. Objectives: To evaluate community pharmacist assessment, management and advice giving provided to pregnant women complaining of cough. Additionally, to identify the factors that contributes to the community pharmacist prescribing medications.
Materials and methods: This study is an observational study that was conducted across 200 community pharmacies. Previously trained pseudo-patients were sent to the community pharmacists for the assessment of communication and counselling skills. Bivariate analysis and logistic regressions were performed to identify the factors that predict medication prescription.
Results: The majority of pharmacists were males (150; 75%), non-Arab (147; 74%) and in-charge pharmacists (118; 59%). An association between the gender of pharmacist and the ability to be proactively to ask the pseudo-customer about the description of the symptoms (p-value=0.015) was observed. A significant association between the nationalities of the pharmacists’ and the capability to be proactive to ask about the description of the symptoms (p-value =0.011) was also detected. The ability of prescribing pharmacists straight away or only after a probe was dependent of job title of the pharmacist (p-value<0.001). The logistic regression revealed that not in-charge pharmacists (OR = 4.034, 95% CI: 2.063-7.887, p-value<0.001) and pharmacists who did not utilize sources of information other than their knowledge (OR = 4.347, 95% CI: 1.636-11.549, p-value=0.003) were more likely to prescribe medications to the pseudo-customers.
Conclusion: The pseudo-customer method is a viable tool that improves current practice to assess the effectiveness services provided by community pharmacists. Providing continuous clinical trainings and educational interventions about cough management in pregnancy may improve the practice. There is a crucial need for the development of community pharmacy guidelines for the care of pregnant women with cough
Keywords: Community pharmacist; community pharmacy; cough; pseudo-customer