Pharmacists through a public lens: Understanding trust, role recognition, and support for prescribing

Over the past several decades, the pharmacist's role in healthcare has undergone a substantial transformation. The public's relationship with this professional shift remains largely uninvestigated.

Through this single site study conducted at a science museum located in a metropolitan area, 405 consented adults completed a 40-item survey to capture the public's understanding of the pharmacist's role in healthcare, trust in pharmacists to provide healthcare, and support for scope of practice expansion. Surveys were administered in-person, with all responses captured electronically. The dataset was examined using descriptive statistical procedures and association analyses.

93% of respondents reported having a preferred pharmacy and 79% routinely picking up at least one prescription. For common health services, 53.5% had spoken to a pharmacist about a medication in the past year, while 48.4% had received a vaccination at a pharmacy. However, 20.3% of respondents indicated having a preferred pharmacist with whom they have an established patient-provider relationship. Additionally, utilization of pharmacist-provided health care services outside of vaccination and medication dispensing was uncommon among respondents at 12.2%. Lastly, comfort with pharmacist prescribing was high for seasonal illnesses (91.2%) and more moderate for chronic health conditions (52.5%). Only 5.8% of respondents reported they were not comfortable with pharmacists prescribing any medications.

The public relies on pharmacists as medication experts, with most viewing them as trustworthy healthcare professionals capable of independently providing a range of services, although trust varies by service, including prescribing. Increasing awareness of pharmacist-provided care, alongside expanding access to and the scope of these services, presents an opportunity to improve patient outcomes.