Abstract
Objectives
To describe older adults' perceptions of evaluating and comparing pharmacies based on the Consumer Experience with Pharmacy Services Survey (CEPSS), describe older adults' perceived importance of the CEPSS and its specific domains, and explore older adults' perceptions of the influence of specific CEPSS domains in choosing/switching pharmacies.
Design
Focus group methodology was combined with the administration of a questionnaire. The focus groups explored participants' perceived importance of the CEPSS and their perception of using the CEPSS to choose and/or switch pharmacies. Then, using the questionnaire, participants rated their perceived importance of each CEPSS domain in evaluating a pharmacy, and the likelihood of using CEPSS to switch pharmacies if their current pharmacy had low ratings. Descriptive and thematic analyses were done.
Setting 6 semistructured focus groups were conducted in a private meeting room in a Mid-Western state in the USA.
Participants 60 English-speaking adults who were at least 65 years, and had filled a prescription at a retail pharmacy within 90 days.
Results
During the focus groups, the older adults perceived the CEPSS to have advantages and disadvantages in evaluating and comparing pharmacies. Older adults thought the CEPSS was important in choosing the best pharmacies and avoiding the worst pharmacies. The perceived influence of the CEPSS in switching pharmacies varied depending on the older adult's personal experience or trust of other consumers' experience. Questionnaire results showed that participants perceived health/medication-focused communication as very important or extremely important (n=47, 82.5%) in evaluating pharmacies and would be extremely likely (n=21, 36.8%) to switch pharmacies if their pharmacy had low ratings in this domain.
Conclusions
The older adults in this study are interested in using patient experiences as a quality metric for avoiding the worst pharmacies. Pharmacists' communication about health and medicines is perceived important and likely to influence older adults' pharmacy selection.
Citation: Olayinka O Shiyanbola, David A Mott, Kenneth D Croes Using the Consumer Experience with Pharmacy Services Survey as a quality metric for ambulatory care pharmacies: older adults' perspectives BMJ Open 2016;6:e011241 doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011241
Received: 22 January 2016 Revised: 27 April 2016 Accepted: 3 May 2016 Published: 26 May 2016
Copyright: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Contributors
OOS and DAM designed the study. OOS and KDC were involved in data collection and data analysis. OOS and KDC wrote the manuscript and DAM critically revised the content. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.
Disclaimer The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
Competing interests None declared.
