Pharmacists’ Perceptions of Practice Roles: Opportunities and Challenges Facing Pharmacy with Respect to Expanding the Scope of Practice in Mississippi

摘要

Title: Pharmacists’ Perceptions of Practice Roles: Opportunities and Challenges FacingudPharmacy with Respect to Expanding the Scope of Practice in MississippiudObjective: To provide objective evidence as to the opportunities and challenges that pharmacists will encounter when implementing an expanded role in the health care system from the perspective of the practicing pharmacist.udMethods: Questionnaires were mailed to Mississippi licensed pharmacists. The first section contained questions dealing with the demography of the respondent including a utilization of skills scale and several domains of job satisfaction. The second section contained the health care activities inventory. Respondents were asked to report which health care professional should be providing each of the services using a scale ranging from entirely pharmacist to entirely physician. In the six weeks following delivery of the surveys, 533 were returned. 51 of the surveys returned were incomplete and were not included in any subsequent analyses, a 18.8% usable response rate.udResults: Traditional pharmacy roles supported by the findings included: dispensing prescriptions and compounding prescriptions. Other support existed for pharmacist activityincounselingpatientsaboutmedications. Traditionalphysicianroleswerealso supported by Mississippi pharmacists. Many health care activities were believed to be shared responsibilities. In some cases, pharmacists were believed to carry more of the responsibility and in some cases it was the physician. In comparing community and institutional practitioners, community pharmacists held more firmly to the ideas of traditional roles than did the institutional pharmacists.udConclusions: As is evidenced by the data presented, in the opinion of Mississippi pharmacists, there are some traditional roles that remain the exclusive domain of pharmacy or medicine (e.g., dispensing medications, compounding medications, and diagnosing disease). While respondents did support these traditional roles, there is evidence to suggest that the pharmacist has opportunities to expand his/her practice beyond the count, pour, lick and stick moniker that too often has been applied.