Assessment of physical premises of selected pharmacies of Nepal

BACKGROUND This work attempts to investigate the standards of physical premises of pharmacies in terms of cleanliness, ventilation, protection from physical environment, spaciousness and storage facilities of two selected districts of Nepal: Kathmandu and Kaski. METHODS A cross-sectional, observational study of 100 randomly selected retail and wholesale pharmacies (55 from Kathmandu and 45 from Kaski) was conducted for their compliance to provisions of physical premises: cleanliness, ventilation, protection from physical environment, spaciousness and storage facilities. Preliminarily, scoring was done by converting 5-point Likert scale to a 100-point scale as follows: 1 = 0-20, 2 = 21-40, 3 = 41-60, 4 = 61-80 and 5 = 81-100. These scores were then reported as poor (score ⩽ 40), below average (score of 41-49), average (score of 50), above average (score of 51-60) and good (score ⩾ 61). Cronbach's alpha for retails and wholesales obtained was .720 and .757, respectively. RESULTS In wholesales, protection from physical environment was least scored among other components, with the mean score 34.7 ± 8.3 for Kathmandu and 37.3 ± 13.3 for Kaski. Ventilation was scored 35.3 ± 6.3 for Kathmandu and 39.3 ± 11.6 for Kaski. All other components were obtained below average. However, in retails, the storage facilities were rated 'poor' with mean score 36.3 ± 13.9 for Kathmandu and 36.0 ± 11.9 for Kaski. Most other components were scored above average except for ventilation which was scored 'good'. It was found that there was no significant difference between physical premises of the pharmacies of Kathmandu and Kaski in terms of all the indicators. The findings suggest that physical premise of many pharmacies was not found appropriate as provisioned in the good pharmacy practice requirements of Codes on Sales and Distribution of Drugs. CONCLUSION Most pharmacies were found non-compliant to the aforementioned pharmacy premise components. Therefore, key partners should come up with commitment for increasing compliance to the legislative provisions of physical premises for ensuring quality and safety of medicines.