“Lack of trust” in pharmacy
May 16, 2012
A STUDY published this week in
the British Medical Journal claims
that initiatives aiming to implement
a range of pharmacist-led public
health services in the UK are
“undermined by lack of public
trust” in the profession.
Based on a survey of just 26
“purposively sampled members of
the public” who each participated
in one of five focus groups, the
report concludes that the patients
were “inclined to draw
unfavourable comparisons between
pharmacists and GPs”.
The groups were composed to
represent known groups of users
and non-users of community
pharmacy, namely mothers with
young children, seniors and men.
According to the executive
summary of the report, participants
considered pharmacists to be
primarily involved in medicine
supply, and “awareness of the
pharmacist’s extended role was low.
“Participants were often reluctant
to trust pharmacists to deliver
unfamiliar services, particularly
those perceived to be ‘high risk’,”
the report continues.
The report identified numerous
“system-based” factors which
reinforced trust and confidence in
GPs including registration and
appointment systems as well as
practice environments.
“Our data indicate that the nature
and context of public interactions
with GPs fostered familiarity with a
specific GP or practice, which
allowed interpersonal trust to
develop,” the authors wrote.
In contrast, participants’ exposure
to community pharmacists was
limited, they added, concluding
that “it seems improbable that the
public will trust pharmacists to
deliver unfamiliar services which
are perceived to be ‘high risk’
unless health systems change in a
way that promotes trust in
pharmacists”.
The report suggests that this
could be achieved by “increasing
the quality and quantity of patient
interactions with pharmacists and
gaining GP support for extended
pharmacy services”.
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