LAWRENCE — Research carried out at the University of Kansas School of Pharmacy based on a survey of 1,218 pharmacy care patients in the United States shows more than half were satisfied with care they've received in pharmacies. But, according to the researchers, "gaps remain — especially in how pharmacy staff address drug therapy in relation to patients' race, ethnicity and disabilities."
Based on survey data gathered via Qualtrics (an online survey and analysis platform widely used in scholarly research), the most acute differences in perspectives on pharmacy interactions come from communication issues specific to hearing loss and "limited physical space for patients in wheelchairs" experienced by respondents.
The findings appear in the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy .
Because quality pharmacy care is so critical to patient outcomes, co-author Brittany Melton, professor and interim chair of pharmacy practice at the KU School of Pharmacy, said gauging perceptions of care experienced by diverse individuals with disabilities could save lives.
"We like to say that pharmacy is really the last line of defense for the patient," she said. "They may have had an interaction with a physician and not asked all of their questions — because of timing or because of a language barrier. It's the pharmacy's responsibility to make sure that prescription is safe and appropriate for the patient, but also to communicate clearly. If you give a patient a prescription and they don't understand why they need to take it or how they should take it, it may not benefit them — it may actually harm them."
Melton said it's vital for pharmacists and pharmacy staff to communicate effectively with such patients so they can receive the full benefit of their medication — and, ultimately, of the health care system they deserve.
"A significant portion of the population have some sort of limitation or disability — and those are people who are going to interact with pharmacists and pharmacy staff," Melton said. "They're going to get prescriptions just like anybody else. We were really curious what those patient populations — particularly those who were of ethnically diverse backgrounds rather than your traditional white patients — what their perceptions of pharmacy and pharmacist interactions were."
The KU researcher and her colleagues, lead author Cambrey Nguyen of the University of Iowa and co-author Kristin Villa of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, divided respondents into three demographic categories: white/non-Hispanic without disabilities, ethnically diverse without disabilities and ethnically diverse with disabilities.
"We really were looking at patients who had gone into the pharmacy, had gotten prescriptions and had at least some sort of interaction with pharmacy staff, rather than those who are perfectly healthy and never go into the pharmacy," Melton said. "In looking at them across the groups, for the most part people were fairly satisfied with their pharmacy interactions."
The satisfaction was true of patients living with disabilities as well, with notable dips in satisfaction for ethnically diverse patients with disabilities relating to hearing and physical space for wheelchair access.
The KU researcher said the data could help pharmacies provide better service for patient customers with better outcomes for health.
"Broadly speaking, pharmacies could improve the interaction with better planning for patients with hearing limitations," Melton said. "If patients were deaf or had reduced hearing, they felt pharmacies could do a better job in communicating with those patients, as well as things like the space around the pharmacy for things like wheelchairs. If you've been in a pharmacy, you know how tightly packed they can be — and how difficult it can be to get something like a wheelchair up to the counseling desk."
The survey respondents' pharmacy care could have come at a large corporate chain or from a small mom-and-pop pharmacy, and those interactions may have involved picking up prescriptions and receiving instructions for taking them, or receiving other pharmacy services like vaccines, blood-pressure readings or diabetes support.
According to Melton, pharmacists and pharmacy staff should heed the results of the new study. As of 2020, white Americans received the majority of Pharm.Ds, according to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy . The KU researcher said more could be done to ensure cultural differences don't affect the patients' quality-of-care.
"I think there's still a lot that we can do to look at pharmacy and pharmacy technicians, pharmacists — their perceptions of providing care for patients with certain disabilities and with different ethnic backgrounds," she said. "One of the comments that came up frequently was participants weren't sure if the pharmacy staff felt comfortable with people of different ethnic backgrounds — and they may not have engaged with the pharmacy staff as thoroughly because of that difference in ethnic background."
Melton added that along with those practicing in clinical settings, schools and programs educating future cohorts of pharmacists could prepare students to serve patients from a wide variety of backgrounds and identities.
"There are things we can do to help better educate student pharmacists as they're coming through to address drug therapy in relation to patients' racial and ethnic backgrounds or providing continuing education and training for pharmacy staff once they're out — to help improve that interaction as well."
The authors suggest other measures pharmacies might consider include hiring more diverse staff and increasing professional development for cultural intelligence.
In the education setting, Melton stressed the value of incorporating some patient characteristics into things like skills-lab interactions or patient cases they're working with "so students recognize when there's a difference with a patient they need to understand and to work with."
