LEBANESE COMMUNITY PHARMACY: THE ROLE OF THE PHARMACIST IN THE HEALTH CARE

Dr. Luna El Bizri* and Ahmad Dimassi

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to investigate and to analyze the role of the pharmacists in different aspects of community pharmacy practice including counseling, dispensing and prescribing of medications. Additional purposes included pharmacists‟ perception of themselves in the healthcare system, and their evaluation of offered services at their pharmacies in terms of types and importance. Study Design: A cross sectional study was conducted in all districts of Lebanon between June and September 2016. Settings and Participants: Questionnaires were distributed to pharmacy students during their summer training of year 2016 in community pharmacies across all regions of Lebanon. The study population consisted randomly of community pharmacists, or assistant pharmacists, or technicians within these pharmacies. Questionnaires were filled by the owners or employees working at community pharmacies. The questionnaire was divided into three major sections with whether openended or close-ended questions. These sections included pharmacists‟ understanding of their role as professional counselors and prescribers, pharmacists‟ understanding of pharmaceutical care, frequency of these services, pharmacists‟ understanding of their role as prescription dispensers, and finally the major obstacles and concerns at their pharmacies. Results: A total of 207 participants were included in this study. Our results showed that 26.6% of the pharmacists perceived themselves as medicine experts and only 18.4 % as patient counselors. Moreover, 95.7% of pharmacists gave advice about smoking cessation while only 0.3% of them prescribed nicotine replacement therapy. It was noted that 97.6 and 93.2% gave advice about healthy eating and physical activity respectively, however, only 1% prescribed weight loss products. Different unpaid services were offered at the pharmacies such as measurement of blood pressure, blood glucose, lab values interpretation, weight measurement, and wound care procedures. The major constraint in offering services was large workload (63.3%). As prescription dispensers, 67.1% of the pharmacists kept personal non- shared medical record for their chronic patients. Furthermore, 58% of the participants found that prescription illegible handwriting was the major cause of dispensing errors, for that 54.6% called the prescriber immediately for clarification. In general, 56% of the pharmacists found that lack or no information about co-prescribed medications was the major cause of medication errors. Additionally, 84.5% of pharmacists explained to their patients about expected side effects but only 61.4% of them have explained about the most common side effects. Conclusion: When community pharmacists fully understand their role in the healthcare system particularly as patient counselors and when inter-professional coordination between the different components of this system is achieved, a better patient care is attained.

Keywords: Community pharmacy, pharmacy services, Lebanon, counseling, prescription error, medication error.