Abstract
Recently,the importance of self-medication with over-the-counter (OTC) drugs has come to be recognized.Pharmacists are asked to recommend suitable OTC drugs to patients and such recommendations must be based on accurate information obtained by interviewing patients.In this study,24 pharmacists interviewed a standardized patient complaining of dyspepsia (Scenario 1)and a standardized patient suspected of having a peptic ulcer caused by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) (Scenario 2).Interviews were evaluated using the Roter method of interaction process analysis system (RIAS) and pharmacist communication patterns were categorized as follows : activating and partnering with patient (Scenario 1,27.1% ; Scenario 2,29.9%) ; providing information and counseling (Scenario 1,28.5% ; Scenario 2,24.2%) ; forming a good relationship with patient (Scenario 1,25.2% ; Scenario 2,21.6%) ; and gathering patient information (Scenario 1,13.1 % ; Scenario 2,18.8%).Most conversation content dealt with the condition/disease state and medical treatment of the patient but none dealt with lifestyle or social psychological topics.The level of experience of the pharmacist was directly correlated with the amount of utterances but not with the amount of open-type question- or empathy-related content.We noted that pharmacists generally consider forming good relationships with patients to be important when selling OTC drugs.
Our findings suggest that pharmacists place great importance on gathering information from patients in triaging suitable OTC drugs.Although experienced pharmacists used more utterances,they did not all use desirable communication patterns for showing empathy or ask open-type questions.They therefore need training in communication skills if they are to form really good relationships with patients.
