Saudi adults satisfaction with community pharmacy services

Al‑Tannir et al. SpringerPlus (2016) 5:774 DOI 10.1186/s40064-016-2442-8 Open Access RESEARCH Saudi adults satisfaction with community pharmacy services Mohamad Al‑Tannir1*, Afnan I. Alharbi2, Arwa S. Alfawaz2, Razan I. Zahran2 and Mustafa AlTannir3 Abstract Background: Community pharmacists play a significant role in patient health care in Saudi Arabia and are directly responsible for medication-related counseling. Aim To assess Saudi Adults satisfaction with community pharmacy services and the secondary objective is obtaining an insight of their needs in patient counseling service. Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted via a questionnaire distributed to a representative sample of 650 Saudi adults approached at pharmacists and public places in areas of Riyadh during March 2014. Results: 500 Complete questionnaires were collected, and the response rate was 77 %. Around 41 % were satisfied with Saudi pharmacy services. Out of these, 57 % attributed their satisfaction to pharmacist counseling on current medication, 96 % to appropriate dosage regimen explanation and 73 % to appropriate time spent in counseling (p < 0.001). When asked about reasons for dissatisfaction, 82 % of the unsatisfied group stated that pharmacists fail to ask about comorbid diseases and 78 % reported unavailability of dedicated pharmacist for patient counseling (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Saudi adults have variable levels of satisfaction with community pharmacy services. To increase levels of satisfaction, it is necessary to provide adequate pharmacist training in community pharmacies. Keywords: Patient satisfaction, Community pharmacy services, Patient experience, Pharmacist–patient communication Impact of findings on practice ••  The patient-pharmacist relation has immense importance in improving patient health. This study highlights the areas that are lacking in pharmacy services and can be henceforth improved. ••  Awareness about pharmacist responsibilities and patient satisfaction levels will lead to better pharmacy services and patient care. Background Pharmaceutical care is the directly responsible provision of medication-related care to improve a patient’s quality of life (Slack and Ing 2009). The pharmacist has to establish a short-term relationship with the patient in order to ensure appropriate use of their medication. *Correspondence: 1 Research Center, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article The role of the pharmacist comprises of providing complete information and services that contribute to achieving the best anticipated results of the medications while minimizing, as much as possible, the occurrence of the untoward effects. Pharmacists’ role also encompasses increasing patients’ compliance with the medication, counseling on dosage regimen and providing instructions about the common side effects of both prescribed and over the counter medications (OTC) (Rayes et al. 2014; Gu et al. 2008). It is expected, from the point of view of the society, that pharmacists should have a definite and active role in patients’ satisfaction including counseling and providing comprehensive knowledge about medication use (Iqbal et al. 2008). Patient satisfaction is a good indicator of healthcare quality (Mpinga and Chastonay 2011; Fenton 2012; Browne et al. 2010) which could be affected by patients’ adherence to their treatment regimen (Viktil et al. 2013). Patient satisfaction on the pharmacist’s performance can © 2016 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Al‑Tannir et al. SpringerPlus (2016) 5:774 be affected by the pharmacist’s instructions about the use and adherence to medication (Kassam et al. 2012). Patient satisfaction is of paramount importance for several reasons. High satisfaction levels indicate that community pharmacies are performing their role effectively, whereas, unsatisfied patients will be reluctant to visit the community pharmacy again if they were displeased in their previous experiences, leading to a loss of patients. On the other hand, poor satisfaction levels may act as a trigger that will motivate the pharmacists to improve the different aspects of patient services (Al-Arifi 2012). Counseling is considered the most valuable service provided by community pharmacies. Some studies prove that the patients increase response and satisfaction with better counseling (Burban et al. 2013; Becker and Lois 1980). Another study indicates an increase in levels of frequency of counseling; monitoring and direct counseling also had a greater satisfaction rate (Liu et al. 1999). Importance of the community pharmacist role was highlighted in a study conducted on Saudi Adults showing that poly-pharmacy (use of multiple medications more than is clinically needed) could be reduced through effective pharmacist’s counseling (Salih et al. 2013). The impact of pharmacy services on Saudi community as previous research reveals that 44.6 % of the participants view pharmacists as an integral member of the healthcare system even though 38 % reported pharmacists were not asking about health related problems to solve medication-related hazards and 19.7 % reported that pharmacists gave unclear medication instructions (Al-Arifi 2012). Aim of the study Our study aims to assess the satisfaction level of Saudi adults with the pharmaceutical services provided at the community pharmacies. This in turn will help us draw conclusions on the areas in need for improvement. The results provided from data analysis will provide better understanding of community pharmacy services provided for the Saudi community. We expect more than 50 % of the participants would be satisfied with Saudi community pharmacy services. Ethical approval Ethical approval was granted by the Ethics Committee at King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh. Methods Study design This cross-sectional study is designed to assess the general public satisfaction with the services provided by community pharmacies in different areas of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Sample selected from each area was Page 2 of 5 proportional to population density (http://www.riyadh. gov.sa/en/pages/riyadhcity.aspx). After a pilot study on ten individuals to ensure questions were properly phrased, six hundred and fifty questionnaires were distributed to adults in community pharmacies and public places around Riyadh. A modified version that contained questions of sections about patients’ views and satisfaction towards community pharmacy was used to assess the outcomes of interest. Questions included, for instance, demographic data, w (...truncated)