Romanian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences
 

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PATIENT COUNSELLING AT DISPENSING OTC MEDICINES IN THE COMMUNITY PHARMACY

DIANA SIMONA NEGRU1*, AURELIA NICOLETA CRISTEA1, ANA MARIA PETCULESCU2

1Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Carol Davila”, Bucharest, Romania;
2Marketing Department, S.C. S.I.E.P.C.O.F.A.R. S.A., Bucharest, Romania

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The aim of this study was to observe and assess patient counselling provided by community pharmacists, when dispensing over the counter (OTC) medications. “Mystery customer” methodology was used to measure pharmacists’ level of counselling. Specially trained “mystery customers” (not known by pharmacies staff) made 241 visits to 70 chain pharmacies located in Bucharest and other main cities of Romania, from April 2007 to July 2008. They followed a scenario for purchasing OTC medication and noted the items of counselling they received using a standardized, five criteria scoring protocol. During the study, 241 scoring protocols were collected. Data analysis revealed that 58.5% of the pharmacists did not advise the patients (“mystery customers”) at all. The overall level of counselling (measured by criteria) has not exceeded 34.0%, but significant differences (p < 0.05) were determined among the counselling criteria. This study showed that patients received counselling mostly about drug administration and dosage, while many other aspects were ignored. For improving patients’ therapeutic outcomes, a recommendation upraised from this study is that pharmacists should enhance the level of counselling and patient education, provided in community pharmacy.