<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><bold>Introduction:</bold> Intervention of pharmacists in medication adherence can meaningfully contribute to achieving therapeutic outcomes. Exploring the real-life readiness and opportunities of pharmacists may result in the adoption of measures, which could be seen through improvement of patients’ adherence to pharmacotherapy.<bold>Aim:</bold> The aim of the paper was to make a survey on community pharmacists’ potential in medication adherence support in its connectivity to technical and personnel factors, which underline the capacities of pharmacies in dealing with medication adherence.<bold>Methods:</bold> The questionnaire survey was conducted from October to December 2014 and involved 158 pharmacists from 117 Czech (CZ) and 41 Slovak (SK) community pharmacies. The structured questionnaire surveyed both technical and personnel factors, including provision of consultancy services related to medication adherence. Non-adherence risk reduction was evaluated by adopting Morisky Scale modified from the pharmacist’s perspective. Questionnaires outcomes were summarised in contingency tables and analyzed for associations between respective categorical variables using χ2 or exact tests and association coefficients. All results are reported as significant at P≤0.05.<bold>Results:</bold> The average score of adherence support (CZ/SK 1.95/1.93) was significantly higher as compared to that of persistence or concordance (P&lt;0.001). Reduction of non-adherence risk reached the score of a medium degree (P=0.73, average 2.29 in CZ and 2.22 in SK). These findings were significantly associated with personnel capacities (provision of consultancy, preference for the use of recommended procedures in CZ (P&lt;0.001), number of years of practice in SK (P=0.029)), while significant association with technical equipment (consultancy room) in the SK (P=0.037).<bold>Conclusion:</bold> The pharmaceutical care is developing towards the improvement of medication adherence in both countries - assuming a medium degree of adherence support. Further progress may be observed in strengthening the pharmacists’ personnel capacities, and accelerated mainly using information technologies, i.e. through technical capacities.</abstract>

Introduction: Intervention of pharmacists in medication adherence can meaningfully contribute to achieving therapeutic outcomes. Exploring the real-life readiness and opportunities of pharmacists may result in the adoption of measures, which could be seen through improvement of patients’ adherence to pharmacotherapy.Aim: The aim of the paper was to make a survey on community pharmacists’ potential in medication adherence support in its connectivity to technical and personnel factors, which underline the capacities of pharmacies in dealing with medication adherence.Methods: The questionnaire survey was conducted from October to December 2014 and involved 158 pharmacists from 117 Czech (CZ) and 41 Slovak (SK) community pharmacies. The structured questionnaire surveyed both technical and personnel factors, including provision of consultancy services related to medication adherence. Non-adherence risk reduction was evaluated by adopting Morisky Scale modified from the pharmacist’s perspective. Questionnaires outcomes were summarised in contingency tables and analyzed for associations between respective categorical variables using χ2 or exact tests and association coefficients. All results are reported as significant at P≤0.05.Results: The average score of adherence support (CZ/SK 1.95/1.93) was significantly higher as compared to that of persistence or concordance (P<0.001). Reduction of non-adherence risk reached the score of a medium degree (P=0.73, average 2.29 in CZ and 2.22 in SK). These findings were significantly associated with personnel capacities (provision of consultancy, preference for the use of recommended procedures in CZ (P<0.001), number of years of practice in SK (P=0.029)), while significant association with technical equipment (consultancy room) in the SK (P=0.037).Conclusion: The pharmaceutical care is developing towards the improvement of medication adherence in both countries - assuming a medium degree of adherence support. Further progress may be observed in strengthening the pharmacists’ personnel capacities, and accelerated mainly using information technologies, i.e. through technical capacities.

Support of medication adherence by community pharmacists in Czech and Slovak Republics: a questionnaire survey study

Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové, Department of Social and Clinical Pharmacy

Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Organisation and Management of Pharmacy

Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Department of Nuclear Physics and Biophysics

European Pharmaceutical Journal

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Introduction: Intervention of pharmacists in medication adherence can meaningfully contribute to achieving therapeutic outcomes. Exploring the real-life...

Support of medication adherence by community pharmacists in Czech and Slovak Republics: a questionnaire survey study

Published Online: Jul 20, 2018

Page range: 15 - 23

Received: Nov 28, 2016

Accepted: Mar 24, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/afpuc-2017-0006

Keywords
community pharmacy, consultancy, medication adherence, Czech and Slovak Republics

© 2018 Molitorisová M. et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Support of medication adherence by community pharmacists in Czech and Slovak Republics: a questionnaire survey study

Published Online: Jul 20, 2018

Page range: 15 - 23

Received: Nov 28, 2016

Accepted: Mar 24, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/afpuc-2017-0006

Keywordscommunity pharmacy, consultancy, medication adherence, Czech and Slovak Republics

© 2018 Molitorisová M. et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
community pharmacy, consultancy, medication adherence, Czech and Slovak Republics