PATIENT AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTIONS TOWARD COMMUNITY PHARMACY SERVERIES IN SEBHA CITY
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Date
2019
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
جامعة سبها
Abstract
Objective: To examine extent of public’ use of community pharmacy in in the southern
Libya “Sebha” and to determine the public’s views and their satisfactions toward
community pharmacy services currently provided in Libya.
Methodology: This study a descriptive, cross-sectional survey and a self-administered
questionnaire was developed. The questionnaire was divided into four sections that
measured the frequency use of community pharmacy, reason of visiting and education
given to the customers, preference visit particular pharmacy and their priority to choose
healthcare center. In addition. evaluate the community pharmacy staff communication and
their providing of drug information as well as customers’ expectations and satisfactions
toward community pharmacy services.
Result: Of all 600 questionnaires were handed, only (462, 77%) were returned. The
majority of respondents (436, 94%) were in the young and middle age and (241, 52.2%)
were university graduates. The majority of respondents (343, 74.3%) reported they had
visited the community pharmacies at least “once” in a month. The highest reason of visiting
reported by respondents was dispensing their prescription medications (304, 65%) while
purchasing “medication without prescriptions” was accounted with (162, 35%). Other
reasons as purchasing women items, baby products, getting health information, cosmetics
and medical supplements were reported by (97,21%) and (93, 20%), (74, 16%), (71,
15.3%) and (70, 15.1%) of the respondents respectively. The highest rate of respondents
was given advice about antibiotic use (224, 48.5%) followed by physical exercises (178,
38.5%) and healthy eating (173, 37.4%). The majority of respondents (358, 77.4%)
preferred to visit community pharmacy over other health care center because minor health
problems. The major factors influence the consumers choose any particular pharmacy were
the professionalism of pharmacy staff (254, 55.4%) and the availability of products (221,
47.8). Other factors as availability of the pharmacist to answer queries (122, 26.4), location
(82, 17.7%), Quick services (80,17.3%), confidential customer processing (78, 16.8%),
whilst the lowest percentage was pharmacy appearance and decoration (46, 9.9%). The
primary health center chosen when they faced drug related problem was the community
pharmacy (248, 53.6%) compared with private clinic (124, 26.8%) and public clinic (90,
19.5%). Attitude regarding communication skills as the politeness, giving privacy, staff
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listens attentively and time the community pharmacy staff spends with them were reported
by (347, 75.1%), (289, 62.5%), (265, 57.4%) and (219, 49.6%) of respondents respectively.
On the other hand, for provision of drug information as “how to work the drug when the
first-time use”, “customer experience of side effects” and “their ability to using the
prescribed medicine properly during their consultations” were reported by (215, 46.5%),
(149, 32.2%) and (146, 31.6%) respectively. In contrast, (302, 65.3%)of respondents
denied that community pharmacy staff were asking for if the customer have further
questions as well as (285, 61.7%) of respondents denied that the staff were providing the
medication storage information. More than half of the respondents in each (250, 54.1%)
and (273, 58.7%) agreed that services of community pharmacies tend to concern about
making money and others believed that services of were more concern toward the business
matter than patient health. However, (191,41.3%) of respondents believed that services are
balanced in both sides whereas minority of respondents (192, 41.6%) believed that the
services more concerned with the heath of patient than business side. More positive
attitude, (51.2%) of respondents agreed that services concerned about drugs and public
healthcare. Interestingly, almost all of respondents (366, 85.7%) acknowledged the role of
community pharmacy as indispensable health care setting. The majority of respondent were
satisfied with general service of community pharmacy and experience of pharmacy staff
which they reported by (244, 52.9%) and (249, 53.8%) respectively. However, the
availability of product and cost of pharmacy products satisfied by only (195, 42.2%) and
(81, 17.5%) of respondents respectively compared with (70, 15.2%) and (253, 54.7%) of
respondents were dissatisfied correspondingly.
Conclusion: The study revealed that the majority of Libyan people are regular use of
community pharmacies. Although there were various topics of the advices had been given
in community pharmacies, they were not a routine performance by community pharmacy
staff. Generally, the public has positive attitude toward the quality of communications as,
politeness, Privacy and respect, listens to the them attentively and time spent during
encounters and they acknowledge the role of community pharmacy in the health care
system, However they have negative attitude toward quality of scientific counselling and
cost of products.