Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Qualitative assessment of the pharmacistâ€™s role in Punjab, Pakistan: Medical practitionersâ€™ views

Saira Azhar¹ , Mohammad Azmi Hassali², Ayesha Iqbal¹, Muhammad Rouf Akram³, Mufti Attique-Ur-Rehman³, Sabiha Karim⁴, Imran Tariq⁴, Muhammad Hassham Hassan Bin Asad¹, Ismail Tarjik⁵, Ghulam Murtaza¹

¹Department of Pharmacy, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad, Pakistan; ²Discipline of Social and Administrative Pharmacy, University Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia; ³Department of Pharmacy, University of Sargodha, Sargodha; ⁴University College of Pharmacy, University of Punjab, Lahore; ⁵Department of Pharmacy, University of Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan.

For correspondence:- Saira Azhar Email: drsairaazhar@gmail.com Tel:+23142082826

Received: 8 October 2014 Revised: 29 December 2014 Published: 28 February 2015

Citation: Azhar S, Azmi Hassali M, Iqbal A, Rouf Akram M, Attique-Ur-Rehman M, Karim S, et al. Qualitative assessment of the pharmacistâ€™s role in Punjab, Pakistan: Medical practitionersâ€™ views. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(2):323-327 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i2.19

© 2015 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the perception of Pakistani doctors regarding pharmacist’s role in Punjab Pakistan.

Methods: A qualitative approach was used to assess the perception of doctors regarding pharmacist’s role in the study setting. A total of 12 doctors were interviewed using a semi- structured interview guide. The study was conducted for a period of 3 months in the Pakistani cities of Islamabad and Lahore, from July to September 2011. Doctors were informed regarding the aim, objective and nature of the study.

Results: All the interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically analyzed for their content. Thematic content analysis yielded four major themes: 1) Availability of pharmacist in Pakistan’s healthcare setting. 2) Willingness to collaborate with pharmacist. 3) Separation of prescribing from dispensing. 4) Difference in academic levels of doctors and pharmacist.

Conclusion: Doctors are receptive to an expanded role for pharmacists, also regard them as drug information experts, but their expectations fall short of the quality of clinically-focused pharmacy services that pharmacists are actually rendering.

Keywords: Doctorsâ€™ expectation, Pharmacist, Clinical pharmacy services, Qualitative study, Prescribing