Investigation of the Potential Needs and Peace of Mind of Patients in Relation to Out-of-Hours Pharmacy Services

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate pharmacy service needs of patients and peace of mind of patients in relation to out-of-hours pharmacy services. For patients who came to the health insurance pharmacy, we conducted a survey on the patients’ attitudes toward composition and consultation needs and peace on mind in relation to out-of-hours pharmacy services to investigate the potential characteristic of the needs regarding pharmacy services. We also found that a factor that influenced their peace of mind with regard to services offered by pharmacies was out-of-hours dispensation services. We analyzed patient attributes and local and composition and consultation needs using chi-square test. As a result, significant difference was observed in a ratio of distribution of the composition needs in six items including “sex” and “age.” Similarly, significant difference was observed in four items including “sex.” In addition, in a patient with multiple factors that needs becomes higher, it was shown that composition and consultation had a big influence of “the living together with a child.” The patient attribute that composition and consultation became high in the needs together was “a woman”, “under 60 years old”, “the living together with a child” and “local region”. For analysis by Generalized Linear Model, the two factors of “consultation during holiday,” “nighttime dispensation” were extracted. Furthermore, in a crowd “a woman” and “local region”, “consultation during holiday” was extracted, and a difference was seen in influence in a case for the whole. In this study, it became clear that pharmacy service to give the peace of mind to a patient was a holiday and night composition. From the result, in the community medicine system, it was suggested that the improvement of these service offers was important.