THE EVALUATION OF COMMUNITY PHARMACIES’ SERVICE QUALITY IN ANKARA FROM GOOD PHARMACY PRACTICE PERSPECTIVE

Ö. Nazan CELAYIR ERDOGAN*° , Ismail ÜSTEL*

*Hacettepe University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacy Management, Sihhiye, Ankara, TURKEY.
°Corresponding Author

Summary:
Sociology, economy, technology, demography and communication have all shaped pharmaceutical care, a term first used in the late 1980s. WHO stated that Good Pharmacy Practice (GPP) is a stepping stone to the practice of pharmaceutial care. The above mentioned factors will also help bring about further developments in pharmacy practice. GPP, also called the Tokyo Declaration, is a set of principles for hospital and community pharmacy practices. In this study, the critical structure-process elements of service quality of retail pharmacies in Ankara are evaluated according to GPP. The selected pharmacies are from two socioeconomically different quarters and those near hospitals. The questionnaire was filled out by pharmacists. Next the, pharmacies’ personnel were observed continuously and discretely. 58.26% pharmacists (127/218) agreed to participate in the study, but, it was not possible to contact 17.89% of them (39/218) 23.85% (52/127) did not agree to participate. The term GPP could be described by only four pharmacists(3.10%). One half the community pharmacists named communication skills among the abilities they wished to have. Approximately three fourths of them stated that their service was of good quality. Almost 80% of the pharmacists had not participated in on-the-job-training programs for the last two years (1993-1995). Only 6.3% of pharmacies had a private area for counselling, 7.9% had no source of professional information, 70% had no computers. Therapeutical and pharmaceutical programs were used by only 11% of them. Of the drugs demanded 46% were prescription drugs. Of the drug requests,60% were met by the pharmacists themselves. Written and oral information was provided in 16.68% of drug requests. Drug storage conditions and adverse drug reactions were hardly mentioned at all. Professional activities concerning drugs occupied only 18% of the pharmacists’ time. The quality of structure-process elements of service is inadequate in terms of GPP.

Key words:
Pharmacists, Patient Care, Community Pharmacy Services, Good Pharmacy Practice, Service Quality, Pharmaceutical Care.