What prescribing means to pharmacists: a qualitative exploration of practising pharmacists in Alberta

In 2007 Alberta, Canada, became the first North American jurisdiction to adopt prescribing legislation for pharmacists. In light of these legislative changes and expanded scope of pharmacy practice, we evaluated what ‘prescribing’ means to pharmacists in Alberta and the application of prescribing in pharmacy practice.

We invited pharmacists to participate in semi-structured telephone interviews using closed and open-ended questions. Pharmacists working in community, hospital or other settings were selected using a mix of random and purposive sampling. Interviews were audiorecorded and transcribed, and data were entered into nVIVO 9 software. Transcriptions were analysed by two investigators using an interpretive description approach to identify themes.

Thirty-eight pharmacists were interviewed, of whom 13 had additional (independent) prescribing authorization. Prescribing had a wide breadth of meaning to the pharmacists in our study, which included writing a new prescription and extending an existing prescription, as well as advising on non-prescription medications. Pharmacists described prescribing in terms of the physical act of writing the prescription and as part of the patient care process as well as the legislated definition of pharmacist prescribing. The sense of increased responsibility associated with prescribing was noted by many pharmacists.

Prescribing had diverse meanings to pharmacists in our study, and appeared to be context-specific. Understanding the meaning prescribing holds for individual pharmacists is important to explore whether pharmacist's definition of this expanded scope has shaped pharmacists’ enactment of prescribing practice.