Estimating problem drinking among community pharmacy customers: what did pharmacists think of the method?

Community pharmacists have successfully been involved in brief interventions in many areas of health, and also provide services to substance misusers. There has been recent interest in community pharmacists providing screening and brief interventions (SBI) to problem drinkers. The aim of this study was to develop a method for measuring prevalence of risky drinking among community pharmacy customers and to explore acceptability of this method to participating pharmacists.

Forty-three pharmacies (from 80 randomly selected) in New Zealand agreed to participate in data collection. On a set, single, randomly allocated day during one week, pharmacies handed out questionnaires about alcohol consumption, and views on pharmacists providing SBI, to their customers. At the end of the data collection period semi-structured telephone interviews were carried out with participating pharmacists.

Pharmacists were generally positive about the way the study was carried out, the support and materials they were provided with, and the ease of the data collection process. They reported few problems with customers and the majority of pharmacists would participate again.

The method developed successfully collected data from customers and was acceptable to participating pharmacists. This method can be adapted to collecting data on prevalence of other behaviours or medical conditions and assessing customer views on services.