Basing pharmacy counselling on the perspective of the angina pectoris patient.
OBJECTIVE
A participatory action research study design was developed and tested in 40 Danish internship pharmacies as part of a 3-year study supported by the Research Centre for Quality in Medicine Use. The aim of the study was to create a foundation for improving the quality of counselling practice in pharmacies by comparing the pharmacy staff's views on, knowledge of and behaviour towards a specific patient group with the knowledge, perceptions and medication use of the same patients.


METHODS
Pharmacy students in their fourth year collected data for the study. In 1999, the students carried out 123 qualitative interviews with angina pectoris patients and collected 569 questionnaires from pharmacy staff in 40 internship pharmacies.


RESULTS
The results indicate that discrepancies exist between the patients' and pharmacy staff's perspectives on important issues such as knowledge about medicines (patients)/provision of information about medicines (pharmacy staff), experienced side effects (patients)/information about side effects (pharmacy staff), knowledge on prevention and lifestyle (patients)/information on lifestyle and prevention (pharmacy staff) and expectations of pharmacies (patients)/initiatives started in pharmacies (pharmacy staff).


CONCLUSIONS
The study gives reason to believe that angina pectoris patients might benefit if pharmacies provided more information on the relationship between lifestyle factors and angina pectoris, the possible side effects of medicines and the function of medicines.
Haugbølle
Lotte Stig
LS
Department of Social Pharmacy, Research Centre for Quality in Medicine Use, Royal Danish School of Pharmacy, Universitetsparken 2, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. lsh@dfh.dk
Sørensen
Ellen Westh
EW
Gundersen
Birgitte
B
Petersen
Kirsten Holme
KH
Lorentzen
Lene
L
D000787:Angina Pectoris / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000523:psychology; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D037001:Directive Counseling / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010361:Patients / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010594:Pharmacies / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010595:Pharmacists / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013339:Students, Pharmacy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data