An exploratory study of outpatient medication knowledge and satisfaction with medication counselling at selected hospital pharmacies in Northwestern Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Medication counselling is an important activity that improves patient therapeutic outcomes. After this activity has been carried out, patients should be satisfied with counselling, and possess adequate knowledge about their medications.

Objectives: To describe outpatient/caregiver medication knowledge and satisfaction with medication counselling at the main outpatient pharmacies of eight public secondary and tertiary hospitals located in two states in Northwestern Nigeria.

Methods: Exit interviews were conducted from December 2019 to March 2020 with randomly sampled patients/caregivers who had just been dispensed one or more prescription medications from the main pharmacies of the hospitals. The questionnaire used contained 31 questions in three sections. The first section collected demographic information. The second section assessed respondents' experiences and overall satisfaction with the counselling they had received. The last section evaluated respondents' knowledge of one randomly selected prescription medication that had been dispensed to them. Data collected were coded and analyzed to generate descriptive statistics. To explore associations between respondent characteristics and overall satisfaction, non-parametric tests were used, and statistical significance set at p<0.05.

Results: A total of 684 patients/caregivers were interviewed. Majority of respondents agreed that the time spent (97.1%) and quantity of information (99.1%) provided during counselling was adequate. However, over 60% of them also agreed that dispensers did not assess their understanding of information provided or invite them to ask questions. Despite this, their average overall satisfaction with counselling on a 10-point scale was 8.6 ± 1.6. Over 90% of them also correctly identified the routes and frequency of administration of the prescribed medication selected for the knowledge assessment. Although, more than 60% of respondents did not know the duration of therapy or names of these medications.

Conclusion: Respondents' satisfaction with medication counselling was fairly high even though they did not seem to know much about their medication.