A nationwide exploratory survey assessing perception, practice, and barriers toward pharmaceutical care provision among hospital pharmacists in Nepal

Pharmaceutical care (PC) services reduce medication errors, improve the use of medicines, and optimize the cost of treatment. It can detect medication-related problems and improve patient medication adherence. However, PC services are not commonly provided in hospital pharmacies in Nepal. Therefore, the present study was done to determine the situation of PC in hospital pharmacies and explore the perception, practice, and barriers (and their determinants) encountered by hospital pharmacists while providing PC. A descriptive online cross-sectional study was conducted from 25th March to 25th October 2021 among pharmacists with a bachelor's degree and above working in hospital pharmacies using non-probability quota sampling. The questionnaire in English addressed perception and practice regarding PC, and barriers encountered and were validated by experts and pre-tested among 23 pharmacists. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the data. Kendall's correlation was used to explore the correlations among various perception and practice constructs. The scores were also compared among subgroups of respondents using the Mann-Whitney test for subgroups with two categories and Kruskal-Wallis test for greater than two categories. A total of 144 pharmacists participated in the study. Majority of the participants were male, between 22 and 31 years of age, and had work experience between 10 and 20 years. Over 50% had received no training in PC. The perception scores were higher among those with more work experience and the practice scores among those who had received PC training. Participants agreed that there were significant barriers to providing PC, including lack of support from other professionals, lack of demand from patients, absence of guidelines, inadequate training, lack of skills in communication, lack of compensation, problems with access to the patient medical record, lack of remuneration, and problems with accessing objective medicine information sources. A correlation was noted between certain perceptions and practice-related constructs. Hospital pharmacists who participated had a positive perception and practice providing PC. However, PC was not commonly practised in hospital pharmacies. Significant barriers were identified in providing PC. Further studies, especially in the eastern and western provinces, are required. Similar studies may be considered in community pharmacies.