ABSTRACT
Introduction: In Japan, online medical care for emergency contraceptives (ECP) was approved in 2019, but only trained pharmacists can fill the prescriptions. Pharmacists are required to confirm necessary information and provide medication counseling and psychological support for women. The government mentions the need for future consideration regarding over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. Therefore, this study aimed to clarify the awareness and efforts of pharmacists regarding ECP through a questionnaire survey.Methods: A web-based questionnaire survey was conducted involving 229 randomly selected pharmacists.Results: The self-assessment of pharmacists' ECP-related knowledge was low, especially their lack of knowledge of the mechanism of action (31.9%). It was also suggested that 60.3% of pharmacists were concerned about women's psychological support. No pharmacist requested an ECP prescription through online medical care, but 46.9% wanted to attend a training session in the future and request a prescription. A total of 44.5% of pharmacists were against OTC conversion of ECP.Conclusion: At this point, many pharmacists are worried about ECP-related knowledge and the psychological support of patients. Common patient-handling procedure manuals and explanatory documents are required to appropriately respond to patients'. Additionally, improving the knowledge and preparation of pharmacists for OTC drugs was considered necessary.