Do community pharmacists actively engage elderly patients in the dialogue? Results from pharmaceutical care consultations

Abstract

Background: Little is known about community pharmacist-patient interaction within a consultation room, particularly in terms of patient activation and engagement. Objective: To explore pharmacists' communication and attitudes while providing advanced medication-related services. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study, using the Roter Interaction Analysis System (RIAS) framework, to analyse a sample of audio-recorded pharmaceutical care consultations with elderly patients. Results: Around 15.0 per cent of pharmacists' utterances and 3.6 per cent of patients' were related to engagement with the latter during the exchange. To improve health outcomes, such as adherence to a therapeutic regime, pharmacists should augment patients' participation in the dialogue, facilitating concerns and disclosure of doubts, thus improving correct medication use behaviour.