Practices of Inhaler Instruction to Patients with Obstructive Lung Diseases in Community Pharmacies:

A Questionnaire Survey

抄録

Inhaler devices have been the mainstream treatment for obstructive lung diseases including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Community pharmacists play an essential role in educating patients regarding the handling of inhaler devices. However, real-world data regarding the impact of pharmacy characteristics on inhaler instruction such as detailed instructional methods and instructional capabilities for each device are limited. We conducted a questionnaire survey among community pharmacists to investigate their practices regarding the provision of inhaler instruction to patients in routine clinical settings. Of the 140 pharmacists who responded, 127 (90.7％) routinely provided inhaler instruction. Pharmacies that received requests for inhaler instruction from neighboring healthcare facilities were more likely to provide detailed instruction such as patient handling demonstrations and leaflets than those that did not. Most pharmacists indicated that they were able to provide instruction for most of the devices; however, only three devices (Diskus, 87.9％; Ellipta, 90.0％; and pressurized metered-dose inhalers, 76.4％) were identified as “having no difficulty in providing instruction for them” by more than 70％ of pharmacists. Several characteristics seemed to be involved in the difficulty in instruction provision, including the number of working pharmacists, initial instructing time, use of uniform instruction method, receipt of request for instruction from healthcare facilities, and opportunity for device instruction. Collaboration between community pharmacies and clinics/hospitals, such as being proactive in requesting inhaler instruction and providing educational opportunities for device handling and efficient instructional methods, may be useful in improving inhalation therapy outcomes.