Covariance structure analysis of pharmacists' attitudes toward medication history

Abstract

Keeping track of patients' medication histories is an important component of pharmacy practice. In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey on medication histories among pharmacists and performed covariance structure analysis to investigate pharmacists' attitudes toward medication histories. The survey was conducted among pharmacists who work at pharmacies. With regard to the questions on medication histories, factor analysis and covariance structure analysis were performed to create a path diagram. The response rate to the questionnaire was 97.0%. The factor analysis revealed six factors, including: "patient assessment", "learning attitude", "practicing the recording of medication histories", "conscious effort to improve medication histories", "uniformity in medication histories" and "issues regarding medication histories". Meanwhile, covariance structure analysis revealed that the five-factor model excluding "issues regarding medication histories" was the best-fitted model. According to this model, it was clear that the pharmacists were extremely conscious about introducing improvements to the content of medication histories. in this study, covariance structure analysis enabled the effective analysis of the attitudes of pharmacists toward medication histories. We believe that creating and conducting a training program to clarify and resolve issues related to medication histories and then reviewing the outcome of such a training program will lead to quality improvement and standardization of the future management of medication histories. © 2011 The Pharmaceutical Society of Japan.