Assessment of Good Pharmacy Practice among Community Pharmacist and their Perceptions on Ethical Dilemmas

Abstract

Drugs are the prime member of any disease prevention plans and ailment treatment programmes. Pharmacists are the health professionals appointed by relevant authorities for safe and efficacious use of drugs, since they are the specially upskilled and trained personnel for controlling, organizing and distribution of medicines. Medicine alone does not provide desired treatment output. In order to achieve the optimal treatment goals pharmacist must provide enhanced drug related needs and ensure the services are of proper quality. This study aims to assess the Good Pharmacy Practice among community pharmacist, determine the frequency of ethical dilemma at community pharmacy settings and to assess the reasons why community pharmacists may compromise ethical values.It was a descriptive cross - sectional study carried out in different community pharmacies in Kozhikode district of Kerala. The study was executed in 6 months time period. The sample size was 115 community pharmacists working in Kozhikode district. Total of 120 subjects were enrolled and data were collected using a validated self-administered questionnaire. The result shows that most of the pharmacists were providing quality services to the patients and they are facing various ethical dilemma situations in their day today life. They were facing ethical dilemma situation at least once in three months. Community pharmacists compromise on ethical values and ethical issues mainly for protecting their job. The physicians request and employer’s invasion into their activities has a great role in ethical dilemma situations and thus violating the rules. Keywords: GPP, community pharmacy, ethical dilemma, pharmacy services.