Patient's satisfaction level with community pharmacies services in Romania: a questionnaire-based study

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Practice
• Health Services Research
• Patient Outcomes

Background:

• Existing patient satisfaction questionnaires lack country-specific relevance and psychometric validation.
• There is a need for a reliable tool to measure patient satisfaction with community pharmacy services in Romania.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and validate a questionnaire to evaluate patient satisfaction with community pharmacy services in Romania.
• To assess the psychometric properties of the newly developed questionnaire.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study was conducted with 809 voluntary patients in Romania.
• A 22-item, 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was used, covering pharmacy services, staff, medication availability, and staff skills.
• Statistical analysis included Cronbach's Alpha, Inter-rater Agreement, Item Content Validity, and factor analysis using SPSS 27.0.

Main Results:

• The questionnaire demonstrated good reliability (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.861) and validity (Item Content Validity = 97.6%).
• Overall patient satisfaction score had a median of 3.77, indicating a moderate level.
• Satisfaction with pharmaceutical staff skills showed a high median score of 4.0.

Conclusions:

• The developed questionnaire is reliable and valid for assessing patient satisfaction with Romanian community pharmacies.
• Patient satisfaction with community pharmacy services is moderate, with high satisfaction regarding pharmacist interactions and skills.