Pharmacists' readiness to assess consumers' over-the-counter product selections.

OBJECTIVE: To measure and explain pharmacists' readiness to adopt a proposed new standard for assessing consumers' over-the-counter product selections. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, descriptive study based on the theoretical underpinnings of the Transtheoretical Model of Change. A questionnaire was used for data collection. Sections included: (1) pharmacists' readiness to engage in a proposed standard of practice; (2) the positive and negative aspects of doing so; (3) pharmacists' agreement with current legislative status of pharmacist-only products; and (4) demographics. SETTING: Community pharmacy. PARTICIPANTS: Community pharmacists in one Canadian province. INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Pharmacists' readiness to adopt a proposed new standard of care. RESULTS: Response rate was 70.6%. Most respondents were staff pharmacists in independent pharmacies. The majority were not ready to adopt the proposed new behavior--57.6% were in the precontemplation stage. Age, sex, year of graduation, workload, and size of town/city had no significant effect on readiness for change. As expected, precontemplators showed less overall support for keeping pharmacist-only agents behind the counter. Positive and negative beliefs about the proposed standard varied across stages. CONCLUSION: Any initiatives to increase pharmacist involvement in assessing consumer nonprescription product selections must acknowledge that pharmacists differ in their degree of readiness for change.

Pilot study--an investigation of the sources and satisfaction of medication information provided to the elderly.

Studies have shown that consumers, in general, do not know everything they should know or would like to know about the medicines they are taking. In addition, several studies report that many older individuals are reluctant to ask questions about the medicines they are taking. This pilot study was conducted to assess the sources from which the elderly obtain their information about prescription and non-prescription medicines and their level of satisfaction with each source. The study results reveal that over half of those surveyed indicated that they received no information about prescription or non-prescription medicines. Further, a large percentage of those surveyed stated that they would like to receive information about non-prescription medicines from a health provider. The findings suggest that pharmacists should routinely provide information to the elderly about all aspects of their medication treatment.