Needs for a Family Pharmacy and Expected Family Pharmacy Services

Abstract

We wanted to examine people’s demands for a family pharmacy and expected services. We conducted webbased survey and recruited subjects by convenience sampling method. This cross-sectional survey, a 24-item questionnaire, inquired about subjective health problems, pharmacy use, desire to designate one's own family pharmacy, and decision considerations. The Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and logistic regression were used to detect these components. 68.8% of the 449 respondents were willing to name their family pharmacy. 89.9, 82.7, 81.3, and 78.6% of respondents agreed that a proximity to home, proximity to the medical institution they usually attend, good setting for counseling, and storage of a wide variety of medications were important pharmacy characteristics when choosing a family pharmacy. 93.3, 93.1, and 88.9% of respondents, respectively, evaluated a conscience, professionalism in pharmaceutical care, and counseling ability as essential pharmacist qualities. Regarding expected service from a family pharmacy, 52.8, 38.8, and 39.4% of respondents highly agreed on a comprehensive medication review, overall health-related counseling, and resolving queries regarding medicines or dietary supplements, respectively. Koreans generally want a family pharmacy, especially women and middle-aged people. To provide services, customers expect answers to various queries concerning medications; therefore, it is vital to be a highly conscientious and professional pharmacist and to create an environment conducive to counseling.