title: Evaluation of pharmacists' services for hospital inpatients.
abstract: Patient satisfaction with pharmacist-conducted weekly medication-education classes and the underlying factor structure of the evaluation items are described. The pharmacist service consisted of weekly, one-hour classes for headache sufferers in a tertiary headache clinic's hospital unit. One pharmacist taught all of the classes and conducted them in the same manner each week, using the Indian Health Service patient-counseling technique. The classes included both lecture and one-on-one interactions. Any patient admitted to the hospital's headache unit was eligible to participate in the study. Patients were asked to complete a survey at the end of the class, evaluating the service in terms of performance, disconfirmation of expectations, affect, equity, and self-efficacy by rating three statements about each of these on a 7-point scale, where 1 = very strongly disagree and 7 = very strongly agree. Exploratory factor analysis was used to investigate the degree to which these five evaluation areas were distinct constructs. A total of 157 patients attended a medication-education class during the study period. Of these, 153 (97%) provided usable data. Respondents favorably evaluated the pharmacist service, as the means were significantly greater than the scales' midpoint scores (p < 0.001). Factor analysis results suggested that covariation in the data was best described by four factors rather than five: (1) performance, (2) disconfirmation of expectations, (3) equity, and (4) self-efficacy. Inpatients attending pharmacist-conducted weekly medication-education classes favorably evaluated the pharmacist service. Four different conceptualizations of patients' evaluations were identified.
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmacy, University of Minnesota, 308 Harvard Street, SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. schom010@tc.umn.edu
authors.forename: Jon C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Schommer
authors.forename: Richard G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Wenzel
authors.forename: Suzan N
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Kucukarslan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018710:Pain Clinics / Q000592:standards*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010595:Pharmacists / Q000592:standards*; D010607:Pharmacy Service, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States