抄録
There are more than 600 towns/villages without pharmacies in Japan. We carried out a questionnaire survey in 131 of those towns/villages to find out how pharmacists should respond to this issue. The questionnaire showed that all of the towns/villages had hospitals or clinics and advanced home visit medical care was available in more than 80% of them. About 70% of the towns/villages considered that the lack of pharmacies was not inconvenient while 30% found it to be inconvenient.
Next, to find out whether residents really had a proper understanding of the roles of pharmacies and pharmacists, they were shown a material entitled “Explanation of the Function of Pharmacies and the Role of Pharmacists”, and asked to complete a questionnaire again. This time, the questionnaire revealed that a total of more than 70% of the town and village residents surveyed thought that both pharmacies and pharmacists were necessary to the community or wished to have them in the future. These results show the strong desire for pharmacies and pharmacists in the community and also suggest that people need to be better informed of the role of pharmacies and the work of pharmacists.
