2018 Volume 44 Issue 2 Pages 74-82
Many pregnant and lactating patients taking medicine feel anxious about its negative effects on their fetuses and infants. To help pharmacists implement safe drug therapy for them, Aichi Pharmaceutical Association holds communication skill training (CST) sessions as part of a “Program for pharmacists to support pregnant and lactating females.” In the present study, pharmacists' communication skills were analyzed prior to and following the CST to examine its usability. The subjects were 34 pharmacists who participated in the CST in 2013 and played the roles of lactating patients and pharmacists. Following this, videos of the role playing were analyzed: analyses of the “implementation of the process for confirmation of an explanatory model consisting of three items” and the structure of conversations using the RIAS. Furthermore, patients' satisfaction, its relation with the structures of conversations, and the implementation of the process for confirmation of the explanatory model were examined. There was an increase in the number of pharmacists who had conducted the three processes for confirmation of the explanatory model following the CST, and the level of patients' satisfaction was higher in the CST group than in the non-CST group. There was also an increase in the number of pharmacists who had asked psycho-social questions following the CST. Since the CST requires pharmacists to conduct the process of confirmation of the explanatory model and understand it before providing pregnant and lactating patients with explanations of drugs, it is an effective method of helping pharmacists to develop their communication skills to reduce patients' anxiety.
