Alastalo Niina, Siitonen Piia, Jyrkkä Johanna, Hämeen-Anttila Katri
School of Pharmacy, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 1627, 70211 Kuopio, Finland.
Finnish Medicines Agency Fimea, PO Box 55, 00034 Fimea, Kuopio, Finland.
Explor Res Clin Soc Pharm. 2023 Jul 8;11:100304. doi: 10.1016/j.rcsop.2023.100304. eCollection 2023 Sep.
Medication counselling provided by pharmacists is important for ensuring the safe use of medicines.
To assess the quality of non-prescription medicines counselling in Finnish pharmacies.
Three scenarios using simulated patient methodology were conducted: the patient requesting a specific brand name Burana® (ibuprofen, OTC medicine), Pronaxen® (naproxen, behind-the-counter (BTC) medicine) and a nasal spray. The visits were conducted in 146 pharmacies by trained simulated patients. Each pharmacy was visited twice. The quality of counselling was defined as poor (1-2 points), moderate (3-4 points), or high (5-6 points) based on developed scenario-based scoring criteria.
The total number of conducted visits was 292, of which only 29 received high quality counselling. The quality was high in 20% of the cases for Pronaxen® and in 7% of the cases for Nasal spray scenarios. In the Burana® scenario, counselling quality was high only in 2% of the cases. Patients who requested a nasal spray were often asked questions about their symptoms (93%). In the Pronaxen®-scenario, the most frequently asked questions were related to contraindications and drug interactions (56%). The most often given instructions varied between the scenarios, being follow-up in the Burana® and Nasal spray scenarios (17% and 70%, respectively) and how to use the medicine in the Pronaxen®-scenario (63%).
Non-prescription medicine counselling is rarely performed with high quality. However, the quality of counselling depends on the medication in question. There is room to improve medication counselling and the assessment of the necessity and suitability of treatment, especially when a patient requests an OTC pain medicine by its brand name.
药剂师提供的用药咨询对于确保安全用药至关重要。
评估芬兰药店非处方药咨询的质量。
采用模拟患者方法进行了三种场景的研究：患者要求特定品牌的布拉纳（布洛芬，非处方药）、普罗纳克森（萘普生，柜台后售药）和一种鼻喷雾剂。由经过培训的模拟患者在146家药店进行走访。每家药店走访两次。根据制定的基于场景的评分标准，将咨询质量定义为差（1 - 2分）、中等（3 - 4分）或高（5 - 6分）。
共进行了292次走访，其中只有29次获得了高质量咨询。在普罗纳克森场景中，20%的案例咨询质量高；在鼻喷雾剂场景中，7%的案例咨询质量高。在布拉纳场景中，只有2%的案例咨询质量高。要求使用鼻喷雾剂的患者经常被问及症状相关问题（93%）。在普罗纳克森场景中，最常被问到的问题与禁忌症和药物相互作用有关（56%）。不同场景中最常给出的用药指导各不相同，在布拉纳和鼻喷雾剂场景中是随访（分别为17%和70%），在普罗纳克森场景中是如何用药（63%）。
非处方药咨询很少高质量进行。然而，咨询质量取决于所涉及的药物。用药咨询以及治疗必要性和适用性评估仍有改进空间，尤其是当患者按品牌名称要求使用非处方止痛药时。
