Counseling quality in community pharmacies in Selangor / Noraseli Ali

Quality of counseling in a community pharmacy setting is difficult to measure; the pseudo customers approach appears to be a more reliable measure compared to other methods. The aim of this research is to study the level and quality of patient counseling skills in community pharmacies in Selangor. Other objectives are to compare the counseling quality between chain and independent pharmacies, to investigate whether good practice guidelines are implemented in counseling, to assess the need for improvement in patient counseling in community pharmacies and to suggest recommendations for improvement and other practice implications. Six trained pseudo customers were hired to collect the data within 6 weeks. They were trained to act according to a standard scenario that had been created for headaches, and complete the assessment form immediately after each visit. 118 community pharmacies were visited in Petaling Jaya, Klang and Shah Alam. The study found that 89% of the counselors asked at least 1 question of WWHAM protocol and 79% asked who the medicine was for. 81% of the counselors gave information about recommended medication which can be considered insufficient. Assessment on communication skills and general impression on counseling services were graded as satisfactory. This study also found that there are no significant differences between chain and independent pharmacies in patient counseling. It can be concluded that there is a wide variation in the level of quality of patient counseling in community pharmacies in Selangor which can be labeled as average. Pharmacists had to use their own professional judgment based on experience instead of using good practice guidelines and were less likely to give information about medication such as dosage, application and adverse drug reactions. Communication skills among them were graded satisfactory and more programs such as continued pharmacist education can be suggested to increase the rate of counseling in community pharmacies.