Exploring patient expectations for pharmacist-provided literacy-sensitive communication

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Practice
• Health Communication
• Patient Education

Background:

• Limited health literacy is prevalent and linked to negative health outcomes.
• Pharmacies and pharmacists are accessible but often don't target interventions for patients with low health literacy.
• Patient perspectives on the use and expectations of literacy-based communication in pharmacies are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the utilization of health literacy-based communication techniques by pharmacists.
• To explore patient expectations regarding these communication techniques.
• To assess patient satisfaction with pharmacy communication, particularly among those at high risk for medication misadventures.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional telephonic interview study was conducted with patients aged 65+ prescribed at least 8 unique medications.
• Participants were recruited from a clinic-based community pharmacy serving an urban, low-income population.
• A 52-question interview guide assessed patient characteristics, perceptions of pharmacist communication, and satisfaction with current techniques.

Main Results:

• Most patients received basic counseling on medication use (88.9%), side effects (84.2%), and indication (47.4%).
• Fewer patients expected this level of detail (44.4% for use, 55.6% for side effects, 33.3% for indication).
• While satisfaction was high (73.7% very satisfied), the use and expectation of specific literacy-based techniques were low.

Conclusions:

• Patient-pharmacist interactions met or exceeded patient expectations, despite low use of literacy-based techniques.
• Both pharmacists' application of and patients' expectations for literacy-based communication are low.
• Future interventions should aim to increase pharmacists' use of these techniques and raise patient expectations for them.