Abukres Salem Hasn, Hoti Kreshnik, Hughes Jeffery David
School of Pharmacy, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy Department, University of Prishtina, Prishtina, Kosovo.
PLoS One. 2016 May 12;11(5):e0154992. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0154992. eCollection 2016.
To explore the reported practice of Australian community pharmacists when dealing with medication supply requests in absence of a valid prescription.
Self-administered questionnaire was posted to 1490 randomly selected community pharmacies across all Australian states and territories. This sample was estimated to be a 20% of all Australian community pharmacies.
Three hundred eighty five pharmacists participated in the study (response rate achieved was 27.9% (there were 111 undelivered questionnaires). Respondents indicated that they were more likely to provide medications to regular customers without a valid prescription compared to non-regular customers (p<0.0001). However, supply was also influenced by the type of prescription and the medication requested. In the case of type of prescription (Standard, Authority or Private) this relates to the complexity/probability of obtaining a valid prescription from the prescriber at a later date (i.e. supply with an anticipated prescription). Decisions to supply and/or not supply related to medication type were more complex. For some cases, including medication with potential for abuse, the practice and/or the method of supply varied significantly according to age and gender of the pharmacist, and pharmacy location (p<0.05).
Although being a regular customer does not guarantee a supply, results of this study reinforce the importance for patients having a regular pharmacy, where pharmacists were more likely to continue medication supply in cases of patients presenting without a valid prescription. We would suggest, more flexible legislation should be implemented to allow pharmacists to continue supplying of medication when obtaining a prescription is not practical.
探讨澳大利亚社区药剂师在没有有效处方的情况下处理药品供应请求时的报告做法。
向澳大利亚所有州和领地随机抽取的1490家社区药房发放自填式问卷。该样本估计占澳大利亚所有社区药房的20%。
385名药剂师参与了该研究（回复率为27.9%，有111份问卷未送达）。受访者表示，与非常客相比，他们更有可能在没有有效处方的情况下向常客提供药品（p<0.0001）。然而，供应也受到处方类型和所请求药品的影响。就处方类型（标准、授权或私人）而言，这与日后从开处方者处获得有效处方的复杂性/可能性有关（即提供预期处方）。与药品类型相关的供应与否的决定更为复杂。在某些情况下，包括有滥用潜力的药品，供应做法和/或供应方式因药剂师的年龄和性别以及药房位置而有显著差异（p<0.05）。
虽然成为常客并不能保证获得药品供应，但本研究结果强化了患者拥有固定药房的重要性，在患者没有有效处方前来时，药剂师更有可能继续提供药品。我们建议，应实施更灵活的立法，以便在获取处方不实际时允许药剂师继续供应药品。
