Research on Community Resident’s Awareness and Needs for the Services Offered at Primary Care Pharmacies / 社会薬学

ABSTRACT

When establishing new pharmacy services, they must be in line with the needs of individual community residents. In our research, it was clear that services provided by the newly implemented health support pharmacies and primary care pharmacist system in recent years satisfy the needs of patients as well as the public in general. We collected information via a survey that used a structured questionnaire. In addition to basic information (age/sex), it also covered details of their pharmacy use, their thoughts on pharmacy services, and the actual usability of pharmacy services. Differences in respondent’s opinions and the actual usability of each pharmacy service were compared between age groups and sexes. Female respondents had more favorable opinions about the antismoking, nutrition, and sickness prevention consultation services than male respondents did. The proportion of survey respondents in their 40s and 50s who proactively used pension and welfare consultation services was significantly higher than for other age groups. The younger generation perceived 24-hour pharmacies and the primary care pharmacy system as necessary. There is a large disparity between people’s thoughts and opinions on the actual usability of the services that primary care pharmacies aim to offer, and this differ in people’s ages and sexes. The younger generation tend to expect the pharmacy services. It is important for pharmacies to address the needs of the generation which is skeptical toward the separation of medical and dispensary practice and recognize them the new role of pharmacies.