Pharmacy Students' Perceptions of Pharmaceutical Care in Retail and Clinic Settings
Objectives. To determine whether completion of a patient counseling course improved pharmacy students' perceptions of the importance of pharmaceutical care and whether there was a difference in students' perceptions of pharmaceutical care provided in retail settings compared to that provided in clinic settings. Methods. A pre-course and post-course survey instrument was designed to measure students' perceptions of the importance of pharmacists' performing 20 items describing pharmaceutical care. Also, each student wrote a technical report describing a counseling encounter observed between a pharmacist and a patient. This report was subject to content analysis. Results. After taking a patient counseling course, students perceived five out of 20 pharmaceutical care tasks performed by pharmacists to be most important. Also, student analyses of pharmacist/patient interactions indicated that barriers to communication were fewer, students' experiences were more educational, and privacy, monitoring and assessmen...