School of Pharmacy, Social Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Kuopio Campus, University of Eastern Finland, PO Box 1627, FI-70211, Kuopio, Finland.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2022 Sep 7;22(1):1130. doi: 10.1186/s12913-022-08477-2.
Pharmacies play the key role in implementing generic substitution (GS) and counselling customers about it. This study aimed to explore dispensers' perceptions of the factors that facilitate or hinder counselling customers on GS and the reference price system (RPS) in community pharmacies. It also studied dispensers' opinions about the benefits and problems of these systems and discusses them from the counselling point of view.
A postal survey was conducted among Finnish community pharmacy dispensers in spring 2018. The research questions were studied through open-ended questions and analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The questions were analyzed first with inductive content analysis by two researchers independently. The responses were encoded and categorized according to the analytical framework, which was inductively developed alongside the analysis. The categorized responses were further analyzed using frequencies and percentages.
The response rate was 50.8% (n = 498). Of the respondents, 75.9% reported factors that facilitated counselling about GS and RPS. The most commonly mentioned factors included customers' characteristics (36.5%), the information systems used in the pharmacy (28.3%), and the features of interchangeable medicines (21.7%). Of the respondents, 89.0% reported factors that hindered counselling, of which customers' characteristics (45.8%), the unavailability of medicines and other availability issues (32.5%), the features of interchangeable medicines (22.6%) and time pressure in the pharmacy (22.1%) were the most commonly reported. The benefits of the systems focused on cost savings for customers and society (74.4%). The most commonly reported problems concerned medicine availability (31.9%), changes in medicine prices and in reference price band (28.9%), as well as how GS is time-consuming and increases workload (24.2%).
Finnish dispensers reported more hindering than facilitating factors in GS and RPS counselling. Customers' characteristics were the most often mentioned in both cases. Customers' knowledge could be increased by providing information and education. However, developing simpler regulations for GS and RPS, intelligent assisting software, and solutions for secured medicine availability would facilitate implementation of GS. Simplified price counselling would also guarantee the time needed and focus on instructions on the correct and safe use of medicines.
药店在实施仿制药替代（GS）和向顾客提供相关咨询方面发挥着关键作用。本研究旨在探讨药剂师对促进或阻碍社区药店向顾客提供 GS 和参考定价系统（RPS）咨询的因素的看法，以及他们对这些系统的益处和问题的看法，并从咨询的角度对其进行讨论。
2018 年春季，对芬兰社区药房药剂师进行了邮寄调查。通过开放式问题研究了研究问题，并进行了定性和定量分析。两位研究人员首先对问题进行了独立的归纳内容分析。根据分析框架对回复进行编码和分类，该分析框架是在分析过程中逐步提出的。进一步使用频率和百分比对分类回复进行分析。
回复率为 50.8%（n=498）。在回答者中，75.9%报告了促进 GS 和 RPS 咨询的因素。最常提到的因素包括顾客特征（36.5%）、药店使用的信息系统（28.3%）和可互换药品的特征（21.7%）。在回答者中，89.0%报告了阻碍咨询的因素，其中顾客特征（45.8%）、药品不可用和其他可用性问题（32.5%）、可互换药品的特征（22.6%）和药店的时间压力（22.1%）是最常提到的。该系统的益处主要集中在为顾客和社会节省成本上（74.4%）。最常报告的问题涉及药品供应（31.9%）、药品价格和参考价格带的变化（28.9%），以及 GS 耗时且增加工作量（24.2%）。
芬兰药剂师在 GS 和 RPS 咨询方面报告的阻碍因素多于促进因素。在这两种情况下，顾客特征都是最常被提及的。通过提供信息和教育，可以提高顾客的知识水平。然而，简化 GS 和 RPS 的法规、智能辅助软件以及确保药品供应安全的解决方案，将有助于实施 GS。简化价格咨询还将确保有足够的时间，并注重正确和安全使用药品的指导。
