Experience and attitudes of pharmacists towards challenges and adaptive measures to new norm in ward pharmacy practice during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background

COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges to the ward pharmacy practice. Challenges arose due to new norms in the ward pharmacy practice. Adaptive measures to overcome these challenges were important to sustain the quality of pharmaceutical care. This study aimed to identify the perceived challenges and attitudes towards adaptive measures in the ward pharmacy practice during the COVID-19 pandemic and determined their association with pharmacists’ characteristics.

Method

This cross-sectional study was conducted in 14 Perak state hospitals and 12 primary health clinics through an online survey. All ward pharmacists and trainee pharmacists with at least 1 month of ward pharmacy experience and working in government-funded health facilities were included. The validated survey tool consisted of demographic characteristics, pharmacists’ experience towards challenges (22 items), and their attitude towards adaptive measures (9 items). Each item was measured based on a 5-point Likert scale. One-way ANOVA and logistic regression were employed to determine the association of pharmacists’ characteristics against their experience and attitude.

Results

Out of 175 respondents, 144 (81.8%) were female, and 84 (47.7%) were Chinese. Most pharmacists served in the medical ward (124, 70.5%). Commonly reported perceived challenges were difficulties in counselling medication devices (3.63 ± 1.06), difficulties in clerking medication history from family members (3.63 ± 0.99), contacting family members (3.46 ± 0.90), patient’s digital illiteracy in virtual counselling (3.43 ± 1.11) and completeness of the electronic records (3.36 ± 0.99). For attitude towards adaptive measures, improving internet connection (4.62 ± 0.58), ensuring availability of multilingual counselling videos (4.45 ± 0.64), and provision of internet-enabled mobile devices (4.39 ± 0.76) were the most agreeable by the pharmacists. Male (AOR: 2.63, CI 1.12–6.16, p = 0.026) and master’s degree holders (AOR: 2.79, CI 0.95–8.25, p = 0.063) had greater odds of high perceived challenging experience scores. Master’s degree holders (AOR: 8.56, CI 1.741–42.069, p = 0.008) were also more likely to have a positive attitude score towards adaptive measures.

Conclusion

Pharmacists faced multiple challenges in the ward pharmacy practice during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in medication history assessment and patient counselling. Pharmacists, especially those with higher levels of education and longer tenure, exhibited a higher level of agreement towards the adaptive measures. The positive attitudes of pharmacists towards various adaptive measures, such as improvement of internet infrastructure and digital health literacy among patients and family members, warrant immediate action plans from health authorities.

Keywords:

• Challenges
• Adaptive measure
• Ward pharmacist
• New norm
• COVID-19 pandemic

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Director-General of Health Malaysia for his permission to publish this article. We would like to thank all the pharmacists who took part in answering the study questionnaire. Special thanks as well to Perak State Pharmaceutical Services Division, Ministry of Health Malaysia for permitting the implementation of this study and all chief pharmacists of facilities involved. We would like to thank Dr. Doris a/p George Visuvasam and Mdm Noor Hamizah bt Sabki in validating the content of the questionnaire.

Author contributions

NCB, FWK, CCT and CCC initiated the idea of this research work and drafted the proposal. CCT performed data entry of the collected data. NCB, CCT, CCC, LSH, TYL, RSK contributed to the data analysis and manuscript drafting. NCB, OSY and NH provided administrative support and supervision. All authors proofread and approved the final version of this manuscript.

Funding

This research did not receive any funding.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study was registered with National Medical Research Registry (NMRR) and ethics approval was obtained from Medical Research Ethical Committee (MREC). All research procedures were conducted according to the Malaysian Guidelines Good Clinical Practice (4th edition) and other relevant guidelines for research. All information obtained was kept confidential. Data collected from this study did not present any unique identifier in poster/oral presentation, full report, and manuscript. An electronic version of consent form was signed online and informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declared that there was no conflict of interest to disclose.

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