Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Dentistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Okayama, Japan.
Department of Pharmacy, Okayama University Hospital, Okayama, Japan.
J Clin Pharm Ther. 2021 Feb;46(1):181-189. doi: 10.1111/jcpt.13278. Epub 2020 Sep 25.
Recently, opportunities for pharmacists to have face-to-face conversations with cancer patients have increased in Japan. The aim of this study was to investigate the difficulties experienced by Japanese pharmacists when communicating with cancer patients.
We interviewed 7 pharmacists at Okayama University Hospital (Japan), using the semi-structured interview method. The obtained data were qualitatively analysed. A questionnaire was also filled out by 50 Japanese pharmacists to determine the difficulties they faced when communicating with cancer patients.
The difficulties experienced by pharmacists when communicating with cancer patients were classified into the following three domains: (a) coping with patients' negative emotions, (b) questions beyond the scope of pharmacists' expertise and (3) how to manage patients and their families. Factor analysis indicated that the main difficulties pharmacists experienced were coping with patients' negative emotions and questions that were beyond the scope of their expertise. However, pharmacists were unlikely to experience difficulties in communicating additional information regarding anticancer drugs. Hospital pharmacists in Japan had some difficulties in communicating with cancer patients. In particular, many pharmacists felt that they could not sufficiently manage patients' negative emotions and answer questions beyond the scope of their expertise, such as questions about life expectancy or prognosis.
The current study showed that pharmacists experienced three types of difficulties when communicating with cancer patients: coping with patients' negative emotions, questions beyond the scope of their expertise and how to manage patients and their families. These results might facilitate the development of interventions that aim to improve patient-pharmacist communications in Japan.
最近，日本药剂师与癌症患者进行面对面交流的机会有所增加。本研究旨在调查日本药剂师在与癌症患者交流时所面临的困难。
我们采用半结构式访谈法，对冈山大学医院的 7 名药剂师进行了访谈。对所获得的数据进行了定性分析。还对 50 名日本药剂师进行了问卷调查，以确定他们在与癌症患者交流时所面临的困难。
药剂师在与癌症患者交流时遇到的困难分为以下三个领域：（a）应对患者的负面情绪，（b）超出药剂师专业知识范围的问题，以及（3）如何管理患者及其家属。因子分析表明，药剂师在与癌症患者交流时遇到的主要困难是应对患者的负面情绪和超出其专业知识范围的问题。然而，药剂师在沟通抗癌药物的其他信息方面不太可能遇到困难。日本医院药剂师在与癌症患者沟通方面存在一些困难。特别是，许多药剂师认为他们无法充分管理患者的负面情绪，也无法回答超出其专业知识范围的问题，例如关于预期寿命或预后的问题。
本研究表明，药剂师在与癌症患者交流时会遇到三种困难：应对患者的负面情绪、超出其专业知识范围的问题以及如何管理患者及其家属。这些结果可能有助于制定旨在改善日本医患沟通的干预措施。
