Pharmaceutical care services in hospitals of Kuwait.

PURPOSE To describe the current pharmacy practice in the general public hospitals based on self-reported practice by pharmacists, explore the awareness of the pharmacists of pharmaceutical care concept, identify their willingness to implement pharmaceutical care practice, and identify the barriers that may limit its implementation. METHODS Eighty hospital pharmacists working in four general public hospitals were approached to be included in the study. Data were colleted via face-to-face structured interview of the respondents using a pre-tested questionnaire. RESULTS The response rate was 76.3%. Thirty five (57.4%) of the respondents had frequently performed interventions on prescriptions through interaction with physicians. Thirty two (52.5%) had frequently provided patient counselling. The knowledge of the respondents about the counseling points for salbutamol inhaler was assessed using a total score of 10, 35 (57.4%) scored = 5. The frequent provision of counseling was non-significantly least common among the > 40 years group compared to youngest age group (OR: 0.7, 0.3-1.9), male gender (0.6, 0.2-1.4) and those with a practice experience of > 20 years (0.4, 0.1-1.2). Forty six (75.4%) of the respondents reported that they were aware of pharmaceutical care concept. Thirty five (76.1%) and 39.1% of those who reported awareness of pharmaceutical care concept indicated that its main focus is the patient and the appropriate objectives of the concept, respectively. The awareness about the patient as the main focus of pharmaceutical care was non-significantly least among the respondents aged 41-60 years (OR: 0.6, 0.2-2.4) and those with a practice experience of 21-40 years (0.3, 0.1-1.0). The main barriers perceived by the participants were lack of time (78%) and lack of staff (71.2%). CONCLUSION The current practice of hospital pharmacists in Kuwait needs further improvement in relation to interaction with physicians and patient counselling. The lack of uniformity in the responses regarding the focus and objectives of pharmaceutical care indicates a lack of appropriate understanding in this matter. All respondents have shown high willingness towards the implementation of pharmaceutical care services in their practice.