Patient's Satisfaction of Pharmacy Ambulatory Cares at the Emergency Hospital in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To explore the patient satisfaction of pharmacy ambulatory care services at the Emergency Hospital in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia. Methods: This is a 4-month cross-sectional survey of patients’ satisfaction of ambulatory care pharmacy services at the Emergency Hospital, Saudi Arabia. The survey consisted of 48 questions divided into two parts the first part collects demographic information and the second part contains questions on 11 domains (1) medication availability (2) patient counseling (3) pharmacist and patient relationship (4) medication reconciliation (5) medication aberrance (6) pharmacy location (7) pharmacy-waiting area (8) pharmacy communications (9) pharmacy-waiting time (10) pharmacy recommends to others (11) overall patient satisfaction of pharmacy services. The survey was distributed to the Emergency Hospital in Riyadh city, included public, pediatrics and emergency hospitals ambulatory care patient. The study was in an electronic format and it analyze through the survey monkey system. Results: A total of 202 patients responded to the survey. Of those, 144 (71.6%) was Saudi and 57 (28.4%) was non-Saudi. The gender distribution 105 (52%) were females and 97 (48%) were males. The majority of them were in age group of 18-44 years (62%), while more than 44 years old was 68 (33.7%). The highest level of education was high school 81 (40.3%) followed by the Bachelor’s degree 51 (25.4%) and an intermediate school 44 (21.9%). The mean [±standard deviation (SD)] waiting time to get the medications was 19.36±11.02 (minute). The average scores of domains medication availability was 3.71, patient counseling was 3.48, pharmacist and patient relationship were 4.1 and medication reconciliation was 1.99. The medication adherence was 1.88, pharmacy location was 4.13, the pharmacy-waiting area was 3.31, pharmacy communications was 2.18, pharmacy-waiting time was 3.74 and pharmacy recommends to others was 3.69. The General evaluation of pharmacy services was found to be very good to excellent with 155 (76.7%) of responders, while 186 (92.1%) responders recommend the pharmacy to their family or friends and 176 (88.44%) responders prefer to revisit pharmacy. Conclusion: More than half of the patients were satisfied with ambulatory care pharmacy services at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Medication reconciliation, medication adherence and pharmacy communication domains were not found to be satisfied. Refining ambulatory care pharmacy services will avoid drug misadventures, avoid extra cost and surge patient satisfaction with pharmacy services.