Diab Mohammad, Wilby Kyle J
College of Pharmacy, Qatar University. Doha (Qatar).
School of Pharmacy, University of Otago. Dunedin (New Zealand).
Pharm Pract (Granada). 2019 Apr-Jun;17(2):1448. doi: 10.18549/PharmPract.2019.2.1448. Epub 2019 Jun 6.
Public awareness of the role of pharmacists and availability of pharmacy services in Qatar is low. As per agenda-setting theory, mass media may be contributing toward this problem by selecting and disseminating headlines and stories according their own objectives and not those of the profession.
The objective of this study was to examine the agenda set by mass media organizations in Qatar pertaining to the profession of pharmacy and to determine the frequency of professional identifiers that appear within news headlines.
Publicly available news headlines published between November 2016 and November 2018 were obtained from local news websites. Thematic analysis was performed using agenda-setting theory to explore how the public's agenda was set for pharmacy practice in Qatar. Content analysis was used to determine the proportion of headlines that contained a professional identifier linking the news report to the pharmacy profession.
A total of 81 headlines were included in the analysis. The agenda for pharmacy practice in Qatar was set according to two themes: achievement and outreach/engagement. Achievement related to awards, use of new technologies, interprofessional education, and novel student training accomplishments. Outreach/engagement reported student and pharmacist involvement upon completion of a health awareness event. Approximately half (47%) of headlines contained a professional identifying word linking the headline to the profession of pharmacy.
The findings of this study demonstrate that the mass media's agenda for the pharmacy profession in Qatar does not inform the public of pharmacist's services or expanded scopes of practice. Furthermore, a lack of professional identifiers within headlines likely limits the public's agenda of pharmacist roles. The pharmacy profession must work collaboratively with news media to better align the public's agenda with pharmacists' roles and services.
卡塔尔公众对药剂师的作用及药房服务可及性的认知较低。根据议程设置理论，大众媒体可能通过按照自身而非该行业的目标来选择和传播新闻标题及报道，从而导致了这一问题。
本研究的目的是考察卡塔尔大众媒体机构设定的与药学专业相关的议程，并确定出现在新闻标题中的专业标识词的频率。
从当地新闻网站获取2016年11月至2018年11月期间公开的新闻标题。运用议程设置理论进行主题分析，以探究卡塔尔公众对药学实践的议程是如何设定的。采用内容分析法来确定包含将新闻报道与药学专业联系起来的专业标识词的标题所占比例。
分析共纳入81条新闻标题。卡塔尔药学实践的议程是根据两个主题设定的：成就和推广/参与。成就涉及奖项、新技术的应用、跨专业教育以及新颖的学生培训成果。推广/参与报道了学生和药剂师在健康宣传活动结束后的参与情况。约一半（47%）的新闻标题包含将标题与药学专业联系起来的专业标识词。
本研究结果表明，卡塔尔大众媒体关于药学专业的议程并未向公众通报药剂师的服务或扩大的执业范围。此外，新闻标题中缺乏专业标识词可能限制了公众对药剂师角色的议程。药学专业必须与新闻媒体合作，以使公众的议程与药剂师的角色和服务更好地契合。
