Public perceptions of the roles and functions of community pharmacies in the era of expanding scopes of pharmaceutical practice: A questionnaire survey in South Korea.

Community pharmacies in many countries have expanded from their traditional roles and responsibilities of dispensing medicines to also providing additional health services. Our aim was to understand perceptions of the current roles and functions of community pharmacies held by the public and their attitudes towards pharmacy utilisation for selected pharmaceutical practices in an era of expanding scopes of pharmaceutical practices in Korea. A 31-item self-completed web-based questionnaire was administered to adults residing in Korea in June 2018. The participants were those registered as the survey agent's panel. A stratified sampling by gender, age, and place of residence was conducted to represent the entire population in Korea. A total of 1,000 web-based questionnaires were returned out of the 9,339 that were sent out, yielding a 10.71% response rate. We measured perceptions of the current roles and functions of community pharmacies held by the public and their attitudes towards pharmacy utilisation using a 5-point Likert scale. Pharmaceutical practices in Korea are still limited to medicine-centred services. The public felt that treating illnesses and maintaining health are less important functions than safe medication use is. We also observed a consistent tendency towards disinterest in chronic care management by pharmacists. The survey confirmed that pharmacists have sufficient knowledge but that their responsiveness, communication, and collaboration skills are poor. In communication domain, we found that the higher the age group was, the lower the rate of responding that the space was comfortable and time was sufficient. This finding suggests that public awareness of the roles and functions of pharmacies could be improved through differentiate pharmaceutical practices according to the subjects, specifically their ages.