Pharmacy professionals’ perceptions of their professional duties in the Ethiopian health care system: a mixed methods study

BACKGROUND: Pharmacy professionals are experts in therapeutic knowledge, experience, and skills that are used to ensure desired patient outcomes, utilizing the best available clinical evidence and interventions in collaboration with the health care team. They perceive themselves as a provider of technical, standardized, and individualized advice. The objective of this study was thus to assess the perception of pharmacy professionals towards their current professional roles in the health care system in Dessie, a city in the north-east Ethiopian region. METHODS: A mixed-methods sequential explanatory study was used to assess the perception of pharmacy professionals towards their professional roles in Dessie city administration from December 15–30, 2019. The study participants were all pharmacy professionals working at health facilities in Dessie. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data, and face-to-face key informant interviews were used for qualitative data collection. Data were entered, processed, and analyzed using SPSS 25.0 statistical software, and thematic analysis was used for the qualitative exploration using QDA Miner Lite software (v2.0.7, free edition version). RESULT: The study had a 97.7% response rate. Of the 301 participants, 173 (57.5%) were male. Most of the participants had a positive perception, while 38 (12.6%) had a poor perception of their current professional roles. Lack of physical access, poor initiatives, poor communication skills, and a lack of administrative support for pharmaceutical care were statistically significant at a p value of 0.05 and a 95% confidence interval. From the qualitative data, two major themes emerged: perceived roles and determinants (perceived facilitators and barriers). CONCLUSION: Pharmacy professionals’ roles were found to be influenced by a lack of physical access, poor initiatives, poor communication skills, and poor administrator support. Pharmaceutical care requires everyone’s involvement in addressing these factors for successful performance and a better outcome and in considering perceived facilitators and barriers.