Public Health Service Needs of Pharmacy Customers / Шинэ санаа Шинэ нээлт

ABSTRACT

Although all the pharmacy programs (1 public and 2 private) in Mongolia comply with the national standard for pharmacy higher education D 723400 (MNS 5323-126: 2012), competence based learning has not been introduced yet. Also, pharmaceutical public health service needs have not been assessed in community pharmacies of Mongolia. Our goal was to assess the learning needs of pharmacists’ public health competencies and link pharmacy education with the health needs of populations.This cross-sectional, in-pharmacy survey was conducted in a simple random sample of community pharmacies in 6 districts of Ulaanbaatar city central region, which provide price discount on selected drugs through national health insurance. The survey was developed with evidence for reliability and validity and focused on two main needs assessment: pharmaceutical public health (PPH) serviceprovision and PPH competencies learning. Open ended and 3 point scale (1=great benefit; 2=some benefit; 3=no benefit) questions were used to obtain: general information, public health service knowledge, and needs of learning PPH competencies. Descriptive statistics and comparisons using STATA 13 were performed.A total of 248 surveys were obtained (pharmacists n=82; customers n=166). Pharmacist knowledge/skills greatly impacted the public’s decision to use expanded services. The customers reported high levels (75.3%) of needs with pharmacists providing advice on health promotion and healthy life style. 47.6% of the pharmacists replied having knowledge on health promotion and disease prevention is a great benefit to their practice.Our findings indicate that the public is very interested in pharmaceutical public health services and believe they will benefit. Also pharmacists need to be trained ecessary competencies.