Public awareness, expectations, and views on community pharmacist’s roles and practices in the Philippines

Community pharmacists have been identified as an accessible source of drug information for both patients and other healthcare professionals. Over the years, the role and practices of community pharmacists have developed from drug-based activities to patient-centered healthcare. Although most patients have considered community pharmacists the initial point of contact for their medication-related concerns, they remain underutilized healthcare professionals who have become almost invisible to the public despite their efforts. This study was conducted to ascertain the public's awareness, expectations, and views of the roles and practices of community pharmacists in the Philippines. A descriptive quantitative and qualitative cross-sectional research design was employed; a self-made questionnaire was utilized among the 315 respondents selected through non-probability convenience sampling. For data analysis, descriptive statistics and the Chi-square approach were employed. Significant associations were defined as those with p < 0.05. Most of the respondents visit a community pharmacy 2-3 times a month (39.58%) to buy prescription medicines (73.02%) due to its reasonable price (74.60%). The majority (x̅=3.765) agreed that they had considered community pharmacists as an integral part of the healthcare system and expected them to respond to drug-related questions (x̅ =3.686) and view them to be knowledgeable enough to attend to their concerns (x̅ =3.613). The educational attainment of the respondents and their expectations on the roles and practices of community pharmacists were found to be significantly associated with the study (p=0.026). The public has presented an overall positive awareness, expectations, and views toward the roles and practices of community pharmacists.