Healthcare Facilities’ Satisfaction with the Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Supply Agency’s Pharmaceutical Logistics Services: An Exploratory Study

PURPOSE: The pharmaceutical logistics service is concerned with meeting the needs of customers in a public healthcare setting. When customers’ needs are addressed, they will be satisfied. As a result, the objective of this research was to identify major logistics factors that influence customer satisfaction in the Ethiopian pharmaceutical supply agency hubs, as well as to evaluate their satisfaction with the pharmaceutical logistics delivery process. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study with 262 randomly selected pharmacy unit employees from healthcare facilities. The information was acquired using a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire, then analyzed using SPSS statistical software. We performed an exploratory factor analysis to determine relationships (between observed variables and factors) and used the results in the subsequent analysis. To identify the explanatory variables that can significantly predict the outcome variable, a multiple linear regression model is used. A confidence interval (CI) that did not include zero and a p-value of less than 5% were considered statistically significant. RESULTS: In terms of customer satisfaction, approximately 68% of respondents were satisfied with the pharmaceutical logistics services. Most pharmaceutical logistics service attributes, such as ordering procedure [β=0.075, 95% CI (0.005, 0.150)], personal contact quality [β=0.189, 95% CI (0.087, 0.240)], product availability [β=0.206, 95% CI (0.123, 0.303)], timeliness (β=0.192, 95% CI (0.099, 0.225)], order accuracy [β=0.190, 95% CI (0.097, 0.236)], order discrepancy handling [β=0.225, 95% CI (0.137, 0.287)], and complaint handling [β=0.177, 95% CI (0.089, 0.257)] had significant positive effects on satisfaction, explaining 72% of variations. CONCLUSION: The study revealed that a notable proportion of customers feel dissatisfied with the pharmaceutical services they receive. To further satisfy pharmaceutical customers and maintain service competitiveness, proactive measures to improve pharmaceutical logistics service attributes should be implemented, and logistics managers at all levels should strive for operational excellence in light of ever-changing customer expectations.