Abstract
In this study, we investigated the current status of health instruction for patients with chronic illnesses by surveying community pharmacies with the objective of determining new ways of promoting health guidance. A total of 564 pharmacies randomly sampled from among 5640 pharmacies in the Tokyo metropolitan area were surveyed by telephone from May 19 to 30, 2008. The response rate was 56.6% (n=319).
The results revealed that 88.4% (282) provided health consultation and guidance regarding diet and exercise, and 60.2% (189) provided advice on matters other than those related to the use of drugs. Compared with pharmacies that only provided consultation regarding the use of drugs, those which gave advice on other matters as well had higher scores for staff registered for training courses (64.0% vs. 38.7%), use of manuals (31.2% vs. 22.6%), provision of instruments for determining general health status, such as those for blood pressure and blood glucose level measurement (65.1% vs. 51.6%), and sale of such instruments (52.4% vs. 34.4%). The most widely provided instruments were those for blood pressure measurement (108 pharmacies) and clinical thermometers (65 pharmacies).
Although many pharmacies were playing a role in primary care, we speculated that there was variation in the content of health guidance and methods of providing it because of the infrequent use of manuals. Therefore, we recommend that pharmacy consultation services be standardized.
