A preliminary investigation of the interactions between UK and US community pharmacists and their prescription clients

Abstract

Similar periods of time were spent recording pharmacist-client interactions in each of five pharmacies in North Carolina, United States, and South Wales, United Kingdom. All interactions involving prescription medicines were transcribed and analysed, 63 from the UK pharmacies and 60 from the US. The mean time spent by the US pharmacists counselling their clients (122.7 seconds) was almost twice as long as that spent by UK pharmacists (69.1 seconds). Pharmacists in the US offered significantly more items of information to their clients (11.2 items per interaction) than their UK counterparts (6.5 items per interaction). Although pharmacists from both countries asked their clients similar numbers of questions, UK pharmacists asked significantly more leading questions. Over 95 per cent of questions asked by pharmacists from both the UK and the US were the closed type. Although US pharmacists have been shown to offer more advice to their clients than those in the UK, the study did not assess the quality of advice given nor ascertain the opinion of those who received this advice.