Collaboration between family physicians and community pharmacists: opinions of graduates in family medicine.

Objective: To ascertain the opinions of graduating family physicians about collaboration between family physicians and community pharmacists.

Design: Anonymous online survey.

Setting: Two French-Canadian university family medicine residency programs.

Participants: The 2010 and 2011 graduating family physicians (N = 343) from the University of Montreal and Laval University in Quebec.

Main Outcome Measures: Content of written prescriptions; frequency of and reasons for consultations with community pharmacists; and graduates' perceptions of sharing professional responsibilities with community pharmacists.

Results: The response rate was 54.2%. Overall, graduates were open to collaborating actively with community pharmacists. For example, at least 60% of graduates reported that it was important to write on prescriptions about any changes to patients' medication and creatinine clearance. Most graduates responded positively to sharing responsibility for the adjustment of treatment of patients with certain chronic conditions (88.3% for anticoagulation, 64.7% for hypercholesterolemia, 61.2% for hypertension, and 60.6% for diabetes) and for the initiation of treatment of minor conditions according to a collective prescription (80.6% for traveler's diarrhea, 74.1% for juvenile acne, and 73.6% for allergic rhinitis). However, such interprofessional collaboration requires that each professional group continues to adapt to its roles and responsibilities.

Conclusion: Family medicine graduates are open to actively collaborating with community pharmacists, but they have some reservations regarding sharing certain responsibilities. As collaborative practices are changing, graduates' opinions should be documented once they are actually practising.