Questionnaire Survey on Aseptic Dispensing at Community Pharmacies Conducting Home Pharmaceutical Care

Abstract

Only a small percentage of pharmacies are equipped to handle aseptic dispensing. Furthermore, there are challenges to implementing aseptic dispensing in home pharmaceutical care. Although the shared use of aseptic dispensing rooms was introduced in 2012, there are few reports on the utilization rate of this system. In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey among pharmacies in Gifu Prefecture that offer home pharmaceutical care to elucidate the current status and challenges of aseptic dispensing and shared use. Survey items included basic information about the pharmacies, and current status and attitudes towards aseptic dispensing. Although 35.1% (91/259) of the pharmacies reported some capability for aseptic dispensing, including shared use or referrals to other pharmacies, only seven pharmacies (12.3% of those capable of aseptic dispensing) performed it. Among these, only one pharmacy reported sharing. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that two factors were significant predictors of a pharmacy’s capability for aseptic dispensing: authorization as “Community Collaborative Pharmacies”, and the number of patients receiving home pharmaceutical care annually (OR 2.832 and 2.014, respectively). In this study, we clarified the current landscape of aseptic dispensing and shared use, as well as identified factors associated with a pharmacy’s capacity for aseptic dispensing.