Pharmacists’ Perception on Dosing Instructions for Medicines - A Cross Sectional Study in a Hospital and Community Pharmacy Setting

Abstract

Background: Patients need to know dosing instructions of their medicines to ensure safe and effective therapeutic outcomes. Pharmacists play a key role in providing accurate and complete dosing instruction to patients each time medicines are dispensed. Objective: To assess perceptions of pharmacists, on the importance of giving specific dosing instructions, suitable mode, current practices, difficulties encountered, and on factors that could improve current practices of giving dosing instructions to patients. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among all pharmacists working in out-patient pharmacies of a selected teaching hospital and a selected community pharmacy in the Colombo district. An interviewee administered questionnaire, developed in-house was used. Results: Only 73% pharmacists agreed it was essential to give dosing instructions every time medicines were dispensed. Pharmacists’ perception on the suitable mode of giving instructions differed from their self-reported current practices (P<0.05). Pharmacists claimed that shortage of pharmacists (N= 26), lack of a separate place to counsel patients (N=22), overcrowded medicine counters (N=21) were barriers when providing dosing instructions. Pharmacists also agreed that these barriers could be overcome by, increasing the number of pharmacists (N=29) and supportive staff (N=20), and by organizing workshops and other training programs on counselling (n=30). Conclusion: Pharmacists agreed that giving dosing instructions to patients was essential but most did not practice what they believed. They highlighted the high patient to pharmacists ratio as a main barrier and requested more training on providing dosing instructions to improve this process.