How community pharmacists prioritize cognitive pharmaceutical services.

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Practice
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Community pharmacists are expected to provide pharmaceutical care, including cognitive pharmaceutical services (CPS).
• Current practice shows pharmacists spend significant time on dispensing rather than CPS.
• The ideal prioritization of CPS versus other tasks by community pharmacists is unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine how community pharmacists ideally prioritize cognitive pharmaceutical services (CPS) alongside other daily professional activities.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study utilizing Q-methodology was employed.
• 166 community pharmacists ranked 48 daily activities online.
• Data analysis involved principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation.

Main Results:

• Three distinct groups emerged regarding task prioritization, explaining 59% of the variance.
• All groups considered CPS important, with varying degrees of priority.
• Logistics and pharmacy management were consistently ranked as low priorities by all groups.

Conclusions:

• Community pharmacists value CPS but face practical barriers preventing increased focus on them.
• Factors beyond task prioritization, likely time constraints, hinder CPS provision.
• Delegating logistical and management tasks to support staff is recommended to enable pharmacists to focus on high-priority activities like CPS.