Physicians’ attitude towards community pharmacists’ contribution in the treatment decision making

Abstract A collaborative physician-pharmacist relationship is a fundamental component of a patient’s primary care. The aim of this study was to investigate the attitude of physicians toward collaborative work with community pharmacists in Sulaimani City, Iraq. A cross sectional design was utilized, and a questionnaire was sent to 60 physicians, of whom 47 completed the questionnaire. A total of 26 (55.3%) physicians stated that they had a history of collaboration with pharmacists in their routine daily work. During/before the treatment process, more than one-third of the physicians “rarely” practiced collaboratively, and one-fifth “never” collaborated. There was little agreement on the community pharmacist’s recommendations; however, after the treatment decision by the physician, a higher degree of agreement was reported, and the number of physicians who were “rarely” or “never” practiced collaboratively decreased to less than 5%. Furthermore, the physicians’ perspective on the pharmacists’ role showed that advising patients on drug administration (85.1%) and preventing drug interactions (76.6%) were the most common duties of the community pharmacists. Physicians agreed on several barriers with respect to collaboration with pharmacists. In conclusion, the physicians’ perspective on the engagement of the community pharmacist in the management of patients was relatively limited. The pharmacist’s recommendation was more accepted after medications were prescribed than before or during decision making on the treatment.

摘要 医师与药师的协作关系是患者初级保健的核心构成要素。本研究旨在调查伊拉克苏莱曼尼亚市医师对与社区药师（community pharmacist）开展协作工作的态度。本研究采用横断面设计（cross sectional design），向60名医师发放问卷，最终有47名医师完成了问卷调研。共有26名（占比55.3%）医师表示，其日常诊疗工作中存在与药师协作的经历。在治疗过程中及治疗前，超过三分之一的医师“极少”开展协作，另有五分之一的医师“从未”进行协作。医师对社区药师的建议认可度普遍偏低；然而，在医师作出治疗决策后，认可度显著提升，“极少”或“从未”开展协作的医师占比降至5%以下。此外，医师对药师职责的认知显示，为患者提供用药指导（drug administration）与防范药物相互作用（drug interactions）是社区药师最常见的工作职责。医师们普遍认可若干项影响其与药师协作的障碍因素。综上，医师对社区药师参与患者诊疗管理的认知相对有限；相较于治疗决策制定前或决策过程中，药师的建议在处方开具后更易被医师接受。