COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS PERCEPTION ON PATIENT COUNSELING AND CONTINUING PHARMACY EDUCATION PROGRAM IN EAST MALAYSIA
Nowadays, community pharmacist plays an important role in medication counseling, patients' side effects monitoring and drug information delivery. The need of patient counseling has become a vital part of the pharmacy practice and pharmaceutical care. Through Continuing Pharmacy Education (CPE) program, pharmacists can develop into professions in different areas including drug delivery, drug information, technology and patient education. This study was conducted to evaluate the perception of community pharmacists towards patient counseling and continuing education program in Sabah and Sarawak, East Malaysia. A cross sectional study design utilizing questionnaires was prepared by an extensive literature review. The research was carried out in four major areas in Sarawak; Sibu, Kuching, Bintulu and Miri and in three major areas Sabah; Kota kinabalu, Sepilok, Tawau by convenience sampling method. Descriptive analysis was conducted using SPSS version 18. Perception of community pharmacists towards patients counseling and continuing education program was analysed using scaling method. A cut off score of 25.8 was used to indicate the perception of community pharmacists. The Pharmacists scored a cut off point of 25.8 and above were considered to have good perception. A sample of 174 community pharmacists from Sabah and Sarawak were participated in this study. All of the respondents except one had positive perception towards patient counseling and continuing education program. Overall, almost all the community pharmacists had positive perception towards patient counseling and continuing education program in Sabah and Sarawak, East Malaysia. Further research is needed to evaluate perception of community pharmacists in different states of Malaysia and explore more on continuing education program in Malaysia.