Abstract:
Background: Patients need to know dosing instructions of their medicines to ensure safe and
effective therapeutic outcomes. Pharmacists play a key role in providing accurate and complete
dosing instruction to patients each time medicines are dispensed. Objective: To assess perceptions
of pharmacists, on the importance of giving specific dosing instructions, suitable mode, current
practices, difficulties encountered, and on factors that could improve current practices of giving
dosing instructions to patients. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among all
pharmacists working in out-patient pharmacies of a selected teaching hospital and a selected
community pharmacy in the Colombo district. An interviewee administered questionnaire,
developed in-house was used. Results: Only 73% pharmacists agreed it was essential to give
dosing instructions every time medicines were dispensed. Pharmacists’ perception on the suitable
mode of giving instructions differed from their self-reported current practices (P<0.05).
Pharmacists claimed that shortage of pharmacists (N= 26), lack of a separate place to counsel
patients (N=22), overcrowded medicine counters (N=21) were barriers when providing dosing
instructions. Pharmacists also agreed that these barriers could be overcome by, increasing the
number of pharmacists (N=29) and supportive staff (N=20), and by organizing workshops and
other training programs on counselling (n=30). Conclusion: Pharmacists agreed that giving dosing
instructions to patients was essential but most did not practice what they believed. They
highlighted the high patient to pharmacists ratio as a main barrier and requested more training on
providing dosing instructions to improve this process.
