Pharmacists’ Perceived Barriers to Patient Counseling

Article history: Received on: 25/11/2013 Revised on: 19/12/2013 Accepted on: 24/01/2014 Available online: 30/01/2014 The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and nature of patient counseling barriers as perceived by pharmacists. The data was collected by adding a question about the existence and nature of counseling barriers, if they exist, to the standard patient counseling form used by pharmacists. The prevalence of counseling barriers was 12.5%. The major counseling barrier was counseling the caregiver instead of the patient (27.8%), followed by low level of education, lack of privacy, lack of interest/time and partial consciousness of the patient (16.7% each) and hearing impairment (11.1%). Finally gender and delay of discharge order were the least reported (5.26% each). This study recommends that a special counseling protocol should be implemented for patients with low level of education and partial hearing impairment and that a proper setting for counseling and strict implementation of policies should be provided by the institution.