Community pharmacists' subjective workload and perceived task performance: a human factors approach.

OBJECTIVE

To measure the association of three categories of community pharmacists' subjective workload with perceived performance in pharmacists' tasks.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional descriptive study.

SETTING

Wisconsin, September 2009.

PARTICIPANTS

224 Wisconsin community pharmacists.

INTERVENTION

Web-based or mailed survey.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Self-reported workload in task-, job-, and organization-related categories and their association with perceived performance on completing a profile review, checking the accuracy of a prescription, and providing a patient consultation for a new medication.

RESULTS

Multivariate regression analysis showed that performing a profile review was positively associated with monitoring demands (reacting quickly to prevent problems) and significantly negatively associated with external task demands (interruptions, rushing). The task of verifying prescription accuracy was positively associated with monitoring demands and negatively associated with volume demands (having enough time to get work done). Patient consultation performance was positively associated with cognitive (using skills and knowledge) and monitoring demands and negatively associated with external demands.

CONCLUSION

These findings revealed the importance of measuring workload demands after separating the demands into categories and that different work demands are associated with performance of different tasks. As a result, no one solution will improve performance, and specific work environments must be considered when crafting solutions.