Evaluating the effectiveness of patient counselling services in the delivery of pharmaceutical care to patients at uth.

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of patient counselling services in the delivery of pharmaceutical care to patients at UTH. The study was beneficial as it aimed at improving pharmaceutical care services and in particular patient counselling services for the betterment of health. The key variables of the study were patient counselling sessions, quality of pharmaceutical care being delivered through patient counselling, views of patients on counselling services, knowledge that patients are receiving from pharmacists, the major factors contributing to the prevailing standards of patient counselling services at UTH & medication counselling behaviour guidelines.The study adopted a Descriptive cross-sectional method of research as it aimed at quantifying the distribution of certain variables in a study population. The main data collection instrument was a structured questionnaire as it enhanced data collection to a larger group of people within the short time that was available to the researcher. The study revealed the following findings: 55% of the patient respondents had been counselled while 45% had not been counselled by the pharmacist on the medicines they had acquired. The majority of those not counselled were inpatients as there were no pharmacists on the wards. Regarding the quality of pharmaceutical care being delivered by pharmacists through patient counselling services, the study revealed that pharmacists arc generally delivering quality pharmaceutical care through patient counselling services.