KEY WORDS: Outpatient care services, Patients Satisfaction,
Pharmacy care.
INTRODUCTION
Patients’ satisfaction is an integral component of the quality of
healthcare and it has been adopted as a proxy to assess the quality and
improve the sustainability of healthcare services in many countries1 . Worldwide,
patients’ satisfaction with pharmacy services reflects the extent to
which their expectations, concerns and preferences are met2-4 . The
measurement of satisfaction will help to identify pharmacy services in
need of improvement, enhance patients’ adherence to their medications
and to provide a positive impact on patient health outcomes5-7
Ambulatory or outpatient pharmacy practice is an integral part of the
healthcare system that provides pharmaceutical care to the patients who
are not admitted to the hospital. Ambulatory care pharmacists have the
responsibility to improve the patient’s knowledge about the proper use
of medicines, assess the patient’s need of medication, manage the
patient’s medication-related problems and develop a relationship with
the patients and their families8 .
In Saudi Arabia, the General Administration of pharmaceutical care at
the Ministry of Health (MOH) published a strategic plan in 2012 for five
years, and one of the dimensions of follow-up assessment was patient
satisfaction with pharmacy services9 . In such
context, patient satisfaction survey had been conducted at more than 250
hospital pharmacies and 2500 primary care center pharmacies in Saudi
Arabia (KSA)10 . The survey
was constructed based on several indicators such as law domains, policy
domains, medication safety domains, patient outcome domains, and
customer needs domains10 .
Some previous studies have reported on patient satisfaction of
pharmaceutical care in terms of evaluating performance of outpatient
services in primary care centers11 , tertiary
care hospitals in Riyadh city 201912 and the
Northern area13 ,
specialized hospitals in Jeddah city14 , the
Eastern region15 and pharmacy
care services in East Province8 . These
studies concluded that the patient satisfaction of pharmacy services was
adequate at MOH hospital overall. The outcomes showed a lack in
pharmacists’ interaction with patients and exertions, medication
reconciliation, medication adherence, and pharmacy communication domains
which require more focus and improvement by pharmacists. A study
recommended conducting training courses to improve staff skills and
attitudes to deal with patients14 .
A recent study on 746 patients attending outpatient pharmacies at public
hospital at Al-Jouf region of Northern KSA concluded a low satisfaction
level of patients with regards to pharmacy facilities and patient‘s
counseling 13 .
A variety of factors might be involved in patients’ satisfaction process
including but not limited to services accessibility, waiting time,
availability of medications, and pharmacy staff attitude in providing
medication information and counseling14,16 .
To the best of our knowledge, there is no study that evaluated patient
satisfaction of outpatient care services at the Northwestern area of the
KSA. This study focused on exploring the level of satisfaction among
patients attending outpatient pharmacies of two tertiary care hospitals
in Tabuk city.
METHODS