Determinants of community pharmacists’ information gathering and counseling practices during the management of minor ailments

OBJECTIVE: To assess the determinants of community pharmacists’ information gathering and counseling practices during the management of minor ailments in Qatar. METHOD: A cross-sectional study of 305 community pharmacists was conducted with a pre-tested 27-item questionnaire. Bivariate logistic regression was used to identify the determinants of information gathering and counseling practices. RESULTS: The response rate was 92.5% (282/305). A majority of the respondents (68.1%) were males, within the age range of 31–40 years (55.3%), work for chains pharmacies (77.3%), and were predominantly of foreign nationalities (94.7%). Patients’ identity (91.1%), age (92.2%), symptoms (92.6%) and duration of symptoms (89.3%) were most frequent information gathered, while dose (99%), frequency (97.8%), route of administration (95.7%), and duration of use (92.9%) were the most frequent counseling information. Median information gathering score was significantly higher in females and among community pharmacists in chain pharmacies (p < 0.05), while median counseling practice scores were significantly higher among in chain pharmacies (p < 0.05). Consultation time of 6–10 min (OR = 1.75, 95% CI: 1.02–3.0, p = 0.04) and female gender (OR = 2.10, 95% CI: 1.16–3.79, p = 0.01) were significant determinants of information gathering, while age group (31–40 years) (OR = 1.84, 95% CI: 1.05–3.22, p = 0.03) and consultation time (6–10 min) (OR = 2.24, 95% CI: 1.31–3.86, p = 0.003) were significant determinants of counseling practices. CONCLUSION: The significant determinants of community pharmacists’ Information gathering and counseling practices during the management of minor ailments were female gender and consultation time (6–10 min), and age group (31–40 years) and consultation time (6–10 min) respectively.