METHODS: A cross-sectional, questionnaire survey was conducted on adults older than 18 years who utilized public pharmacy services. A self-developed, validated questionnaire consisting of three parts was used, i.e., demographic data, perception, and satisfaction. The questionnaire was tested in a pilot study of 50 study participants and demonstrated good reliability results of 0.900 for the perception section and 0.836 for the satisfaction section. Therefore, all items were used in the final questionnaire.
KEY FINDINGS: Four hundred and seventy-nine completed questionnaires were collected with a response rate of 91.6%. The Cronbach's α for perception and satisfaction scores were 0.938 and 0.841, respectively. The median total score for public perception was 83 (interquartile range [IQR]: 15), whereas the median total score for public satisfaction was 38 (IQR: 33). The level of public perception was significantly associated with the age groups (P = .009), ethnic groups (P < .001), respondents' locality groups (P < .001), the level of education achieved group (P = .017), and the income groups (P = .006). Satisfaction was not significantly associated with any sociodemographic factors.
CONCLUSIONS: This study has found that the general public had a favorable perception of the role of hospital pharmacists, and they were generally satisfied with the pharmacy service provided.
Objective: This study aimed to identify the range of work activities of clinical pharmacists by observation and to estimate the proportion of time spent on different work activities by using the work sampling technique.
Methods: The time spent by clinical pharmacists on various activities was measured using the work sampling technique over 30 working days. The work activities of clinical pharmacists were pre-identified and customized into an activity checklist. Two observers were placed at the study site and took turns recording the activities performed by the clinical pharmacists by following a randomly generated observation schedule.
Results: 1,455 observations were made on five clinical pharmacists with a total of 3493 events recorded. Overall, clinical pharmacists spent 78.8% (n=2751) of their time providing clinical services whereas 12.3% (n=433) of their time was spent on non-clinical activities. They were found to be idle from work for 8.9% of the time. There was no difference in bed occupancy rate in the study site regardless of the presence of the observer (p=0.384). Clinical pharmacists were found to report a higher average daily cumulative work unit of 9.8 (SD=4.3) when under observation compared to an average daily cumulative work unit of 6.5 (SD=4.6) when no observer was present (p=0.005).
Conclusions: The results revealed that clinical pharmacists spent a significant amount of time on non-clinical work. Their responsibilities with non-clinical work should be properly taken care of so they can allocate more time to providing patient care.
METHODS: This multi-center, cross-sectional, descriptive survey was conducted at 54 study sites in seven Asia-Pacific countries. A modified Likert-scale questionnaire was used to determine the importance of each element in the ICF among research participants of a biomedical study, with an anchored rating scale from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important).
RESULTS: Of the 2484 questionnaires distributed, 2113 (85.1%) were returned. The majority of respondents considered most elements required in the ICF to be 'moderately important' to 'very important' for their decision making (mean score, ranging from 3.58 to 4.47). Major foreseeable risk, direct benefit, and common adverse effects of the intervention were considered to be of most concerned elements in the ICF (mean score = 4.47, 4.47, and 4.45, respectively).
CONCLUSIONS: Research participants would like to be informed of the ICF elements required by ethical guidelines and regulations; however, the importance of each element varied, e.g., risk and benefit associated with research participants were considered to be more important than the general nature or technical details of research. Using a participant-oriented approach by providing more details of the participant-interested elements while avoiding unnecessarily lengthy details of other less important elements would enhance the quality of the ICF.