What influences the information exchange during self-medication consultations in community pharmacies? A non-participant observation study.

Background: Although pharmaceutical staff consider guideline-compliant information exchange during self-medication consultations as crucial, they have not fully integrated it into practice. It is unclear what prevents pharmaceutical staff from implementing their positive intentions into their actual everyday practice. To improve the information exchange during the current consultation practice, a deeper understanding of its implementation is needed.

Objectives: The aim was to evaluate the factors influencing information exchange during self-medication consultations in German community pharmacies.

Methods: We performed a non-participant observation of real-life consultations with post-consultation interviews of pharmaceutical staff in 10 pharmacies. The information exchanged during self-medication consultations was evaluated via 7 guideline-recommended information parameters in 2 stages of information exchange: (a) 'information gathering' and (b) 'provision of information'. Directly after each observed consultation, pharmaceutical staff's opinion about the consultation, the customer's interest and their own performance was questioned. Factors associated with the observed extent of information exchange were analysed by Poisson regression analysis.

Results: In the 379 self-medication consultations with 46 pharmaceutical staff members, 454 different customer enquiries were addressed, and 483 medications were dispensed. In median, 2 predefined information parameters (First-/Third quartile: 1/4) were fulfilled during an enquiry and 2 parameters (First-/Third quartile: 1/3) were fulfilled for a dispensed medication. Pharmaceutical staff were satisfied with 85% of their consultations and perceived 76% of them as easy to handle. In both information stages, information exchange increased when 'customers were perceived to be interested in counselling' (p < 0.001) and decreased when customers had a 'specific medication request' (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: Information exchange in pharmacies needs to be better integrated into daily practice. Strategies to encourage information exchange should also include pharmaceutical staffs' perception of their own counselling technique. Ongoing patient-centred trainings should facilitate strategies to engage uninterested customers or costumers with specific medication requests in consultations.