Beliefs of Community Pharmacists on Prevention and Correction of Potential Drug Therapy Problems

Abstract

Objective:

To describe likelihood and affective evaluation ratings for salient beliefs of community pharmacists about trying to prevent and correct potential drug therapy problems, and to describe normative belief and motivation to comply ratings about trying to prevent and correct potential drug therapy problems.

Design:

Descriptive statistics from a self-administered mail survey.

Participants:

A convenience sample identified salient beliefs about trying to prevent and correct potential drug therapy problems, and a random sample of Michigan community pharmacists (n = 555) completed a self-administered mail survey regarding these beliefs.

Main Outcome Measures:

Likelihood and affective evaluation ratings of 22 salient beliefs and normative belief and motivation to comply ratings of six salient others.

Results:

Pharmacists believed that trying to prevent and correct drug therapy problems could lead to valuable consequences, regardless of whether the efforts were a success or a failure. The pharmacists also believed they could have a positive impact on the quality of drug therapy; however, they seemed less convinced that failure would lead to health complications in patients or unnecessary health expenditures. Pharmacists were most motivated to comply with the expectations of patients.

Conclusions:

Assisting community pharmacists in adopting pharmaceutical care can be accomplished by (1) providing programs where the process of trying to prevent and correct drug therapy problems can be experienced, (2) promoting an understanding of the relationships between drug product costs and healthcare costs due to patient morbidity, (3) devising mechanisms to increase patient demand for pharmaceutical care and drug utilization review, and (4) assisting community pharmacists to obtain reimbursement for time spent trying to prevent and correct drug therapy problems.