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BELIEFS ABOUT MEDICINES AMONG SWEDISH PHARMACY EMPLOYEES
Jörgensen T, Andersson K, Mårdby A-C.
Dept. of Social Medicine, The Sahlgrenska academy of Göteborg university,
Box 453, 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden (tove.jorgensen@socmed.gu.se).
Background
Health professionals hold both professional and personal health beliefs,
and it is likely that this has an impact on both which information one
communicates and how. The importance of beliefs in relation to adherence
to treatment has been stressed, but is not yet fully appreciated by health
professionals. A larger project will analyse and compare beliefs about
medicines among health professionals and patients.
Objectives
The aim of this study was to describe beliefs about medicines among pharmacy
employees. A further aim was to analyse whether these beliefs were associated
with any background characteristics, such as age, professional category
or medication use.
Methods
The study was performed among pharmacy employees at 24 community pharmacies
in Göteborg, Sweden. The participating pharmacies had a total of
372 employees (pharmacists, dispensing pharmacists, pharmacy technicians).
Data collection was at the weekly pharmacy information meetings with a
questionnaire comprising background questions (age, professional category,
working experience and medication use) and the general part of Beliefs
about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ). For each statement in the BMQ, respondents
marked their degree of agreement on a five-point Likert scale (1=strongly
disagree, 2=disagree, 3=uncertain, 4=agree and 5=strongly agree). The
BMQ has three subparts: General Harm, General Overuse and General Benefit.
Results
A majority of the 292 respondents were dispensing pharmacists. More
than half of the respondents were aged 45 years or older and had worked
in a pharmacy for 20 years or more. A higher proportion of dispensing
pharmacists stated current use of traditional medicines compared to the
other professional categories. The pharmacy employees had a mean score
for General Benefit of 4.31 and a mean score for General Harm of 1.81.
Compared to dispensing pharmacists, pharmacy technicians viewed medicines
as more harmful; and compared to pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and
dispensing pharmacists regarded medicines as more beneficial. Those who
had worked in a pharmacy for 30-34 years regarded medicines as less harmful
compared to those who had worked 0-4 years. Compared to non-users, current
users of prescription drugs regarded medicines as more beneficial. When
controlling for background characteristics, no confounders were detected
for any of the three subscales.
Conclusions
The reason for the difference between dispensing pharmacists and technicians
remain unclear. Nevertheless, the positive beliefs among pharmacy personnel
may have an impact on the communication with clients and, eventually,
clients' adherence to medicines.
Presented at the HSRPP Conference 2006, Bath
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