4,13
This study demonstrated low satisfaction rating (2.73) with the service
of follow-up of patients’ adherence by the pharmacists. This service is
not supported at the majority of hospitals and pharmacies. In fact, the
average patients’ satisfaction rating of this service was very low
(1.75) in three hospitals in Riyadh city12 .
Waiting time is one of the fundamental contributors to patient
satisfaction. In the current study patients reported very good
satisfaction with waiting time and waiting area and pharmacy location in
both hospitals. The waiting time was found to be acceptable as most of
the patients preferred to get their medications in less than 30 min.
Waiting time domain was found to be significant among the three tertiary
care hospitals in Riyadh city, which is related to the differences in
the distribution of the organization system and the number of pharmacy
staff at each of these hospitals12 . Waiting
time was the only predictor of satisfaction among patients attending
emergency care center in Riyadh city16 .
The results regarding the satisfaction with pharmacist’s attitude and
patient relationship were very good, and were a bit higher than those
reported in tertiary care hospitals in Riyadh city12 . It was
similar to those reported in a national study conducted in the primary
healthcare centers11 .
High satisfaction was reported in the area of medication reconciliation.
Our results were higher than other previous studies11,12 . The results on pharmacy location,
waiting area and waiting time were found to be good as reported in the
literature.
This study has some limitations. The study design was cross-sectional
study over a short duration of time with limited number of study sites
which may affect the drawn conclusion as respondents’ beliefs and
perceptions are dynamic and based on exposure to the pharmacy services.
In this context, the response might be based on the respondent’s
experience with regard to their frequent visits and the reception of
outpatient pharmacy services. The study did not explore factors
affecting the respondents’ response. However, the majority of
respondents reported high satisfaction to all domains of pharmacy
services which did not necessitate for further investigations of the
reasons.
In conclusion, the current study demonstrated overall very good
satisfaction scores with the outpatient pharmacy services. More efforts
are needed to improve the service of following-up on patients’ adherence
by the pharmacists. Most of the respondents expressed their willingness
to recommend the pharmacy to their friends and family. Our results were
found to be better than those reported in the literature in many
domains. Notably, the result implicates the professionalism and attitude
adopted by the pharmacists towards the respondents which resembles from
the high satisfaction level of the respondents.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Assistance of Pharm D students, Salah Rashed Almrwani, Abdulrahem Mataq
Aljuhani, Abdulrahman Majed Alanzi, and Abdullah Nasser Albalawi in the
data collection for this study is gratefully acknowledged.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST . The authors declare there is no conflict
of interest.
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Table 1: Participants’ baseline characteristics