Patient and public perspectives of community pharmacies in the United Kingdom: A systematic review

Abstract

Background: The United Kingdom has been at the forefront of enhancing pharmacist roles and community pharmacy services, particularly over the past decade. However, patient and public awareness of community pharmacy services has been limited. Objective: To identify and synthesize the research literature pertaining to patient and public perspectives on: existing community pharmacy services, extended pharmacist roles and strategies to raise awareness of community pharmacy services. Search strategy: Systematic search of 8 electronic databases; hand searching of relevant journals, reference lists and conference proceedings. Inclusion criteria: UK studies investigating patient or public views on community pharmacy services or pharmacist roles from 2005 to 2016. Data extraction and synthesis: Data were extracted into a grid and subjected to narrative synthesis following thematic analysis. Main results: From the 3260 unique papers identified, 30 studies were included. Manual searching identified 4 additional studies. Designs using questionnaires (n = 14, 41%), semi-structured interviews (n = 8, 24%) and focus groups (n = 6, 18%) made up the greatest proportion of studies. Most of the studies (n = 28, 82%) were published from 2010 onwards and covered perceptions of specific community pharmacy services (n = 31). Using a critical appraisal checklist, the overall quality of studies was deemed acceptable. Findings were grouped into 2 main themes “public cognizance” and “attitudes towards services” each with 4 subthemes. Discussion and conclusions: Patients and the public appeared to view services as beneficial. Successful integration of extended pharmacy services requires pharmacists’ clinical skills to be recognized by patients and physicians. Future research should explore different approaches to increase awareness.