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Pharmacists' readiness to assess consumers' over-the-counter product selections
J Taylor1, B Berger, H Anderson-Harper
1College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. taylorjg@duke.usask.ca
Objective:
To measure and explain pharmacists' readiness to adopt a proposed new standard for assessing consumers' over-the-counter product selections.
Design:
Cross-sectional, descriptive study based on the theoretical underpinnings of the Transtheoretical Model of Change. A questionnaire was used for data collection. Sections included: (1) pharmacists' readiness to engage in a proposed standard of practice; (2) the positive and negative aspects of doing so; (3) pharmacists' agreement with current legislative status of pharmacist-only products; and (4) demographics.
Setting:
Community pharmacy.
Participants:
Community pharmacists in one Canadian province.
Interventions:
Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures:
Pharmacists' readiness to adopt a proposed new standard of care.
Results:
Response rate was 70.6%. Most respondents were staff pharmacists in independent pharmacies. The majority were not ready to adopt the proposed new behavior--57.6% were in the precontemplation stage. Age, sex, year of graduation, workload, and size of town/city had no significant effect on readiness for change. As expected, precontemplators showed less overall support for keeping pharmacist-only agents behind the counter. Positive and negative beliefs about the proposed standard varied across stages.
Conclusion:
Any initiatives to increase pharmacist involvement in assessing consumer nonprescription product selections must acknowledge that pharmacists differ in their degree of readiness for change.