Actual and perceived provision of pharmaceutical care in Danish community pharmacies: the pharmacists' opinions

Abstract

Objective: The study explores characteristics of community pharmacies with respect to implementing pharmaceutical care activities. The article addresses the provision of pharmaceutical care at reality level, perceived level and policy level.

Method: A cross-sectional questionnaire was sent to all Danish community pharmacies to investigate the provision of pharmaceutical care (n=288). The respondents were pharmacists. Pharmaceutical care activities were operationalised by detecting and identifying medicine-related problems, setting goals to solve medicine-related problems, and documenting efforts to solve them. A non-respondent analysis was also performed.

Main outcome measure: The identification of medicine-related problems (from self-report) was used as a proxy measure of pharmaceutical care activities and compared to pharmacies' self-reported provision of pharmaceutical care.

Results: The survey response rate was 75.7. The characteristics of pharmacies that detected medicine-related problems differed from those of pharmacies with only a perceived provision of pharmaceutical care. Pharmacies that actually detected medicine-related problems focused on external cooperation regarding their pharmacy activities.

Conclusion: The profiles of the perceived providers of pharmaceutical care and the respondents that detected medicine- related problems were distinct, thus indicating two separate groups of pharmacies. Pharmaceutical care has only been implemented in Denmark to a limited extent. This may be explained in part by the top-down implementation strategy conceived by the proprietor organisation.