Avoiding Treatment Interruptions: What Role Do Australian Community Pharmacists Play?

ObjectiveTo explore the reported practice of Australian community pharmacists when dealing with medication supply requests in absence of a valid prescription.MethodsSelf-administered questionnaire was posted to 1490 randomly selected community pharmacies across all Australian states and territories. This sample was estimated to be a 20% of all Australian community pharmacies.ResultsThree hundred eighty five pharmacists participated in the study (response rate achieved was 27.9% (there were 111 undelivered questionnaires). Respondents indicated that they were more likely to provide medications to regular customers without a valid prescription compared to non-regular customers (pConclusionsAlthough being a regular customer does not guarantee a supply, results of this study reinforce the importance for patients having a regular pharmacy, where pharmacists were more likely to continue medication supply in cases of patients presenting without a valid prescription. We would suggest, more flexible legislation should be implemented to allow pharmacists to continue supplying of medication when obtaining a prescription is not practical.