Exploring the formation of patient satisfaction in rural community telepharmacies

To apply a previously validated patient satisfaction questionnaire within rural community telepharmacies in an effort to identify the underlying factors determining satisfaction with those services and to assess whether the latent structure(s) of patient satisfaction varies depending on delivery mode or communityspecific factors.

Descriptive, nonexperimental, cross-sectional study.

Eight rural community telepharmacy sites (seven in North Dakota and one in Minnesota) in fall 2005.

400 potential participants in rural communities (response rate 24% [n = 96]) whose primary community pharmacy is a telepharmacy site.

PATIENTS visiting a pharmacy to have at least one prescription filled were asked to complete a survey and mail responses to the investigators. The survey contained 37 questions, the first 20 of which were adapted from a well-established, validated survey instrument.

Patient satisfaction with rural community telepharmacy services; patient responses to 20 questions in the survey were used as main outcome variables.

Applying factor analysis to the data yielded a single dimension of patient satisfaction.

A previous application of this instrument in a traditional community pharmacy setting yielded two interrelated latent constructs ("friendly explanation" and "managing therapy"). Our analysis suggests that the formation of patient satisfaction in rural community telepharmacies is much simpler in that patients form a single construct exhibiting high mean and median values. Anecdotal evidence from the literature suggests that the formation of a single construct reflects patients' desire to retain a point of access to health care in their communities.