Journal of Pharmaceutical Care & Health Systems
Open Access

Abstract

Expanding Role of Pharmacists in Delivering Clinical Services; General Practitioners and Pharmacists Viewpoint

Sadia Shakeel, Wajiha Iffat, Fatima Fasih and Yumna Nida Yousuf

The current study was planned to evaluate the perception of general practitioners and pharmacists regarding the role of the pharmacist in delivering clinical services and their willingness to work and collaborate with each other. The present study was cross-sectional and conducted from July 2015 till Nov 2015. The study population comprised of pharmacists and general practitioners, who were surveyed with a 42 items questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were employed to report the response of participants to questionnaire items. The association of the profession on the responses of participants towards the role of clinical pharmacists was determined by using an Independent sample t test at p<0.05 significant level. It was good to observe that both pharmacists and general practitioners in high proportion (>90%) thought that clinical pharmacist should be a source of clinical medicines information to general practitioners such as adverse effects of medicines and selection of a medicine for a particular disease state. Pharmacists (89%) and general practitioners (70.8%) considered it undoubtedly true that involvement of clinical pharmacist in medication management would enhance relationship between general practitioners and pharmacists and >90% of them agreed that the service would improve patients’ medicine-related health outcomes. General practitioners considered that pharmacists are drug information experts. Both groups were ambivalent about the government policies and did not believe that the current policies give sufficient recognition to patient care approach. The government should develop strategies to strengthen doctors-pharmacists relation, thereby enhancing the role of pharmacists in primary care.